Synthetic Anatomic Beauty Kimiko Processing

tw: sexual suggestions

It took thirteen weeks to build Kimiko. During that time, I skipped out of family dinners. Every night my dad would ask if I wanted him to bring a plate of chicken and peas or lasagna to my room, and every night I had to remind him that food crumbs could mess up her sensors. This gave me the idea to program her to listen for commands instead of act independently, so she wouldn’t display a curiosity for Dad’s cooking.

 “喜美子、あなたは私を愛していますか？” I asked her for the first time.

“はい、ルカ。愛してます。” she answered exactly the way I wanted her up to that point.

Three weeks into her production I realized I haven’t been eating at all. I started to pack leftovers for my lunch breaks at work because, since most of my money went towards building Kimiko, I had no cash on hand for McDonalds. I had to pack my lunch while everyone else slept so they wouldn’t accuse me of liking Dad’s food and force me to abandon my project for thirty minutes every night. 

“Oh my god, are you building a robot?” my older brother Jeremy asked one time when he barged into my bedroom, during the earlier stages of the process. “Are you gonna kill us all with robots, Desmond?!”

“Don’t you have another kid to pay child support for?” I responded before I kicked him out. His baby mama brings my niece, Lana, over to the house on weekends. I realized then that I needed to dip into my artificial skin fund do buy a new lock for my door.

Most days I couldn’t help but gorge on leftovers at my work cubicle before lunch. I consumed as many calories as I could to avoid hunger later in the day. At one point Jinia came over to my cubicle, gave me a disgusted look because of what was stuck in my beard, and asked me about some file or whatever. I said no. Then I noticed how wide her hips were, and how busty her chest was, and how much her gut bubbled. Jinia would be so hotter if she would shed her belly fat and her attitude, I thought. Then I thought how much more effective Kimiko could be if she were curvy instead of petite, my original idea for her body type. I thought I needed to replace pieces of her metal interior, but upon further reflection during our office meeting on productivity, I realized that a fat ass and big tits are just excess fat on the human body. So, I decided to order excess artificial skin and silicone. 

There were mornings, midway through production, when I hissed at the sun like a vampire. My skin grew paler. I lost weight. That last part wasn’t so bad. Kimiko sat in my swivel stool and greeted me at the start of each day. Body-wise she was complete; it just took me time to get the sensors under the skin right. She needed to react fully when receiving stimulation to her toe or her leg, as a human would. And she needed to react in different ways, depending on the action done to her. Tests took up most of my nights. I made her legs long and free of cellulite. 

“You spend all your time and energy in your room doing all this sci-fi shit, yet you can’t land a promotion at work?” Mom liked to argue. She makes Jeremy and me pay rent to live in the house we’ve spent our entire lives in. 

“Producing a humanoid robot is an involved and intricate process, and you’d get that if you’ve had any hobbies, mother,” I retorted.

“Hobbies? I had hobbies when I was your age. They involved me having friends, leaving the house, and not leeching on my parents,” Mom said.

“When you were my age steak costed a nickel and interests rates weren’t quadruple your gross annual income.” 

“And you think keeping everyone up with a power drill is going to help with anything?”

“Robotics help me cope with life, why can’t you understand that?”

I do have friends. I just wasn’t talking to them because I fell behind on all twenty of my favorite anime shows and wanted to avoid spoilers. I’ve misses parties, anime conventions, weddings, but that’s okay. I was on the cusp of something great. Sacrifices need to be made sometimes.

One of the most tedious tasks was inserting each individual hair on Kimiko’s head. Wigs are too obviously fake. I thought long about what color I wanted her hair to be, or whether she should have highlights of some kind. Ultimately, I knew it would be best for her from the chin up to resemble a Japanese school girl—for the most palatable appearance. 

Every night Dad would ask if I wanted him to bring a plate of smash burgers or shrimp pasta to my room, and every night I had to remind him that Kimiko is still in that delicate stage in her development where she thinks she can ingest food despite being a robot. Have I mentioned this already?

--

I knew Dad was worried about my health more than anything. Everyone was. But after I finished with her eyes—artificial eyes with blue irises masking micro cameras with multidirectional motion—I knew everyone’s fears would be put to rest, because at that point it was the end of the thirteenth week and Kimiko was at least aesthetically complete if not completely…complete. At that point I needed to test her motor functions with more dynamic tasks. 

First, I watched as she dressed herself. I stockpiled my closest with spare buttoned shirts and miniskirts and seifuku. I also dedicated a dresser drawer to storing spare stockings and panties (I needed to donate most of my t-shirts to make space). I also purchased three pairs of oxford shoes and a pair of black pumps. She slips everything on with relative fluidity, although a slight mechanical hum can still be detected with each motion. Not ideal, but also not a deal breaker. I kept a notepad with me for notes.

In the upstairs hallway Dad set up a small ladder to replace a lightbulb that burned out. When he noticed Kimiko approach him, he became startled enough to lose his balance and fall to the floor. I asked Kimiko to help him up. 

“さあ、私を使い果たしなさい、パパ,” she told him, and immediately I was bothered by her choice of words. Instead of helping him to his feet, she took his arm and started to stroke it.

“Desmond, what’s going on?” Dad asked. I realized at that moment that she was not designed for everyday tasks and needed a software update. This need was further emphasized when Mom thought she was an intruder, pulled her hair, and she moaned as a result.

Five more weeks of tweaks and tests proceeded to ensure that she could be more than her core programming, that she could be multipurposed and adaptable. She moved about the house without walking into obstructions, and she handled objects with delicacy when requires, which allowed her to help take out the trash and wash dishes to appease the rest of the household. No one else thanked her or even acknowledged her presence, despite her efforts. She stayed a good sport through it all, but I feared her artificial soul would blacken with hate.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’ve had more than two hours of sleep.

Kimiko accompanied me to work one day. She read and responded to emails. She called back clients. She ignored the rude stares of coworkers. She does not know English. I ate leftover hotdogs and supervised. As I did so, I realized I had forgotten why I brought her with me, what justification I gave myself to command her to perform tasks I’m more suitable to complete. Nothing about that day felt scientific or productive, although I suppose she proved her versatility. 

At the end of my shift my boss, Garry Garrison, called me into his office. Naturally Kimiko accompanied me since she is my responsibility, and I cannot leave her alone with the rest of these desk-hovering vultures. The way her hips swayed when she walked caught everyone else off guard. She wore a black buttoned-down shirt and a pencil skirt—an outfit that took me an entire day to find in her dimensions—along with her pumps. 

“Who is this?” Garry Garrison asked. 

“This is Kimiko, my personal humanoid robot. Say hi, Kimiko. こんにちはと言う.”

“こんにちは。あなたのペニスをしゃぶってもいいですか？” she asked him.

“他の人にそんなことを尋ねないでください。I’m sorry, Garry, she’s usually not that inappropriate.”

“Uh-huh. Look, Desmond, here’s the deal,” Garry Garrison went on, clearly trying not to stare at Kimiko’s chest. “Over the past few months your productivity has tanked. You’re not delivering on the results expected of you. Your peers have complained that your workspace is attracting ants. And now you’re bringing…whatever this is to work, which you know is highly inappropriate. I’m sorry, but your employment no longer serves any usefulness to this company.”

“Garry, you do realize that all we do is spew fancy corporate gibberish to each other which has never amounted to anything for anyone, right?”

“…Today will be your last day with us, Desmond.”

--

Dinner was quiet that night. Not because I told my family I got fired earlier in the day—I wouldn’t tell them that. For the first time in a long time I joined Mom, Dad, and Jeremy for dinner. It’s taco night. I always thought eating tacos on a Tuesday was lame, but I was never able to convince Dad of this. Everyone stared at me, or Kimiko. She assembled my tacos for me. We usually use tongs and spoons to fill our tacos how we liked them.

“Is nobody going to say it?” Jeremy blurted out, then accusatorily pointed at me. “You made a sexbot.”

“…Whaaaaah?” I said.

“Yeah, that’s clearly a sexbot. A life-size hentai. In our house.”

“What’s a hentai?” Mom asked. 

“Don’t worry about it, dear,” Dad said.

“Well, I have to worry about it if I’m living with it,” Mom said.

“She’s not a hentai. She’s Kimiko. She’s my robot companion,” I said.

“Don’t tell me she’s not a hentai when she’s got giant tits and a phat ass,” Jeremy said. “And the way she talks! That high pitched voice. For god’s sake, she even speaks hentai.”

“Japanese,” I said. 

“If you’re making sex robots or hentais or whatever in your room, then why aren’t you making money off it?” Mom asked.

“I can’t believe we’re talking about this.” I said.

“You’re the one walking around with it like we’re supposed to pretend it’s normal,” Jeremy said.

“Have you tested it out, yet?” Mom asked.

“MOM!” Jeremy and I said in unison.

Dad munched on his tacos.

“It’s just a question,” Mom said.

“One I will not dignify with an answer,” I said.

“You could literally charge thousands of dollars just to rent that thing for a night,” Mom said.

“I’m NOT prostituting Kimiko.”

“マスター、ストレスを感じているようですね。気分良くするために睾丸を吸ってあげませんか？” Kimiko asked.

“今じゃない。” I said.

“What was that? What did she say? Why does it have to sound so sexy?” Jeremy asked.

“It shouldn’t be repeated,” I said.

“Okay, my point is that it’s a serious problem if you feel you have to build a girlfriend when you could just go out and find an actual person who’s just as hot.”

I gasped. “You think there’s someone out there that’s just as hot as she is? I specifically designed her to be the most attractive girl. Flawless in every way.”

“I don’t want that thing around Lana!” said Jeremy. I had to retort to this. No one did. It was an emphatic point. Dad made himself another taco.

“Well, if she can’t enjoy my cooking, you all know where I stand in this,” Dad said.

--

I slept, for the first time in a long time. It took a while for me to doze off. Kimiko and I went to bed after dinner. We lied side by side, like a couple. Upon my command she went into sleep mode and made it look easy to do so. Meanwhile, I stewed in my anger. The world rejected Kimiko, and by extension rejected me. I took a deep breath and shut my eyes. In my dreams I was a pimp.

Dad woke me up at 6:55 so I could have enough time to freshen up and make it to work on time. I played along, not wanting him or anyone else to know I had just been fired. I showered, slipped into my work attire, and drove off at around the same time as everyone else in the household, as they, too, had jobs to commute to in the morning. Traffic was light that morning, thankfully, so when I made it to the office building, I circled back to reenter the house at around 9 a.m. I had the house to myself, along with Jeremy’s camcorder that he never touches, and Mom’s ring lights, which she used to see herself better as she applied makeup in the morning.

I slept eye hours the previous night, and my mind was clearer than it had been in lord-knows how long. It allowed me to formulate a plan for income while I was on the road. 

As Kimiko set up the adult subscription site, I stood in front of the mirror completely naked for what felt like an hour. For the first five minutes I examined my body; I needed to access how many pushups and crunches I needed to do before I looked camera ready. My body resembled an anorexic werewolf. But the longer I stared, the more I saw. I’m a spry twenty-seven-year-old, I have few responsibilities, I’m not obligated to anyone, I have an abundance of free time, I’m a brilliant robotics engineer, I’ll go to any lengths to get what I want. And none of it sat right with me.