The Marriage Simulator

They have airplane simulators to test out who is good pilot material, don't they? So why not a simulator to test out who is good marriage material? At least that's the question that I asked myself after I went through my second divorce of a cheating husband at the ripe old age of twenty seven.

Both James and Trent seemed like great guys who were in love with me and would be true. It turned out that they loved my money, not me. When I was twenty one my very wealthy parents died in a private plane crash and left my brother Aaron and me millions of dollars each. While pre-nups protected me financially from my ex-husbands, they didn't protect my heart or my confidence, and neither one lasted two years.

I began to wonder if there was something about me that made me unlovable. I'm no Kate Upton, but I'm not bad looking. I don't have acne or warts all over my body, I'm in reasonably good shape with what I'm told is a really nice ass, I'm passionate in bed, and I'm nice to everyone. My brother Aaron's kindness, and his insistence that I see a therapist, got me back on track within six months of my last divorce. It was then that I started thinking in earnest about marriage simulation.

My family had actually donated a wing of the main science building at the University that Aaron and I graduated from, so I took advantage of the good will that came with our gifts of several million dollars to meet with the heads of the biomedical engineering and psychology departments, and their top assistants. After getting their assurances that they wouldn't laugh at me, I told them what I was looking for.

"Dr. Swan and Dr. Beetle, what I want is a program and device that will put someone through what marriage is like – especially focusing on fidelity – to determine whether or not they would be a good and faithful husband. It might require one or more devices, written and oral quizzes while hooked up to some truth-telling device, and profiling. I'm not sure how to go about it, but I'm willing to underwrite a research project relating to it. Is there a realistic possibility that something like that is possible?"

Dr. Swan, who is both an M. D. and PhD in engineering, spoke first for the biomedical engineering department. "I'm sure that we can come up with hardware and software that measures truthfulness of a subject in many different ways; and if – I stress 'IF' – there is some relationship between propensity to be a loyal spouse and genetics we can run genome sequencing on test subjects. However, coming up with other aspects of the program is beyond our capabilities."

Dr. Beetle, also an M. D. and a PhD in psychology, and someone who looked like he came out of Central Casting because he fit so well what the public would envision someone with his background and education would look like, stroked his Freud-like grey beard for several minutes while everyone in the room looked at him. Finally he spoke, with his cultured British accent.

"I really do believe that If Dr. Swan's people can do what he suggests that my department can come up with a program that will do the job. This is a very interesting proposition Miss Williams," he said before I interrupted him.

"Please call me 'Ashley' Dr. Beetle."

"Very well – as I was saying, Ashley, this is something that interests me a great deal and I would love to work on it."

"Splendid," I replied, trying to keep my enthusiasm under control but almost clapping my hands together in glee. "What I ask is that your departments, Dr. Swan and Dr. Beetle, come up with a projected cost and time frame for such a program, and an evaluation of what the probability of success is, and that we meet again in two weeks to discuss it further. I would hope that the time frame would be one year or less – I have a very personal interest in this project.

"That sounds like an excellent plan. Charles," Dr. Beetle's first name is Charles but only other PhDs call him that, "let's you and I talk some more after Ashley departs and see who should be assigned what responsibilities," Dr. Swan said as he stood up when I did. He seemed very eager.

To make a long story short, two weeks after our first meeting I gave my go-ahead for a two million dollar project, to be completed within eleven months, to develop the equipment and program for a marriage simulation project. I met with the team leaders for each aspect of the project every three weeks for status updates and brainstorming sessions. I found some of the concepts that the team leaders were talking about to be extremely thought-provoking, intellectually stimulating, and/or bizarre.

Maybe the most bizarre concept – to me anyway – that was imparted to me very early in the process was a genetic pre-disposition to cheat. As Dr. Beetle's top assistant – Dr. Angela Merkel – described it "We have found through research, before we started on this project, that variations in the oxytocin and vasopressin receptor genes play a big part in the propensity for someone to cheat."

"WOW!" I exclaimed, feeling that I should even though I was not familiar with most of the terms she used, let alone the concept. "Is it possible, though, to test for those variations? I mean, how do you get someone's genes, let alone examine them?"

"Probably five years ago – and certainly ten years ago – that would have been impossible," Angela continued, "but now techniques exist for quickly and relatively inexpensively both obtaining a person's genes in a basically non-invasive manner, and assessing the genes once obtained."

"How accurate can the assessment be?" I continued.

"If a person has a particular variant of both the oxytocin and vasopressin genes there is a 40-60% higher probability than in the general population that he or she would be likely to be promiscuous; including cheating on someone who he or she supposedly has an exclusive relationship with," Angela replied with authority.

"What is it, 40% or 60%?" I continued.

"You have to understand that our sampling and testing to date has only been with roughly 2000 participants so we can't pin it down exactly; but if I had to give a number I'd say that it was about 55% for men and about 45% for women," Angela quickly responded, accompanied by nods from her staff researcher Ben Bradley.

While the teams of researchers were feverishly working on my project to have a test run available within ten months of my authorization, and a final "product" within eleven, I was busy – in addition to running several of the businesses I had inherited, and assisting my brother in managing our stock portfolio – trying to find suitable marriage candidates. I used all of the modern mechanisms for doing that, including on-line dating services, in addition to frequenting events where suitable "contestants" might be. As I was doing that I was also working on scenarios on how I could get the candidates to participate in what we now called "The Marriage Simulator." Telling potential candidates outright what it was definitely wasn't an option.

To my great joy – and real surprise – I found two potential candidates within nine months of my authorization of The Marriage Simulator project. Tim Johnson was a year younger than I was, good looking, fit, cocky, and a medical technician. Rob Roy (that really is his name) was two years older than I was, not as good looking as Tim but with a kind face and demeanor, with a great body, and the executive director of a charity. I never made any exclusive commitment to either, or they to me, but I enjoyed dating both of them for about six months. This included, or course, some time in the sack.

Tim was fiery in bed. He loved doggy while pulling my hair and spanking my ass – not my favorite activities, but close to it. He really knew how to use his cock, and I had multiple orgasms almost every time that we had sex, especially if he warmed me up properly which he usually – although not always – did by sucking my clitoris.

Rob was gentler than Tim. Sex with Rob was more like making love than fucking, normally not quite as physically stimulating as with Tim, but with a stronger emotional connection. While my favorite position was cowgirl, Rob was enamored with another particular position. In fact, one thing that distinguished Rob from any other sex partner I had ever had (or anyone I had ever heard of during intimate conversations with my girlfriends) was his love of a sideways intercourse position that I had never heard of (despite my subscription to Cosmo and review of the Kama Sutra). It is a distortion of a position variously called "Fight Fire," "The Pretzel," and "Romp With A View." He calls it "The Rob Special."

In "The Rob Special" I lay on my back with my knees pulled up towards my chest. Rob lies perpendicular to me and when his penis is inserted I rest my feet on his thigh and buttocks. Even more bizarre than the position is the way that Rob moves his body with his dick up my pussy. He moves horizontally in both planes, sometimes at the same time. Since he has long arms he periodically flicks my clit while doing this. The orgasms I get from it are earth-shattering, but not multiple, and it has the drawback that I don't do any work except occasionally pulse my relatively weak pc muscles. Therefore while it is great, I like cowgirl and doggy better.

Perhaps I should describe Tim's and Rob's personalities more than the sex, because the personality (especially as related to commitment/fidelity) ended up being more important in my first two marriages than the sex, which was always good even if not spectacular; but it is the sex that comes most to mind and I was placing much hope on The Marriage Simulator to help with the fidelity part. However, I probably should at least point out that Tim seemed to really like the fact that I had money, whereas Rob was completely blasé about it.

* * * * *

The development of The Marriage Simulator ended up being fairly straightforward. Most of the equipment ended up to be off-the-shelf or easily modified versions of commercial equipment. This included an MRI, and sweat lie detector. The only unique equipment was an advanced lie detector in the form of a whole body suit wirelessly connected to a computer rather than electrodes hooked up by wires to a polygraph machine. There were various other sensors that were utilized as part of the equipment, some without even touching the body, and several placebo machines.

As far as the procedures were concerned, the genetic evaluation of the vasopressin and oxytocin receptor genes was a key component, but also very important were a wide variety of questions and simulated "situations." It was determined that only a short written test would be given, and that all of the rest of the testing would be done orally, most while the subject was hooked up to an actual or placebo piece of equipment. It was also decided that the most important questions would be asked in five or six different ways, with the response to each version monitored by a different piece of equipment, and that any detected lies would be a big demerit.

The total time for The Marriage Simulator was four hours on each of two different days, a Monday and Thursday for Tim and his co-worker, and a Tuesday and Friday for Rob and his assistant directors. I didn't want either Rob or Tim tested alone lest they get suspicious.

I was particularly proud of the way that I got Tim and Rob to participate in the tests.

I talked to the director of the hospital that Tim worked at and offered to give the hospital a $50,000 donation if – without exposure of my involvement – Tim and any other employee that the director suggested would participate in a psychology experiment for the local University. She was only too happy to agree.

In Rob's case since he was the executive director of his employer I could not take the same approach as I did with Tim. However, I could – and did – have a fake organization solicit Rob and his two assistants to participate in a psychology experiment for the local University which would qualify their charity to be considered for a $100,000 grant.

Tim had no choice but to participate, although from my discussions with him he seemed happy to do so especially since it would give him a chance to get away from his normal work routine for most of two days.

Rob talked to me about the solicitation and was unsure about his participation but I convinced him that he could not possibly eschew the possibility of his charity getting so much money for so little effort on his part – and that he would be contributing to science.

The researchers were very pleased with how things went. They expected good results because they had run tests between the tenth and eleventh months of development using individuals that they knew were either loyal married individuals or known cheaters, and the results that they got seemed to mesh almost exactly with what they already knew. However, there always is the possibility of aberrant situations, and the researchers were pleased that those did not seem to occur during the initial trials.

About a week after the final day of the simulation, I met with the researchers. Even though Drs. Swan, Beetle, and Merkel attended, it was Angela Merkel's assistant Ben Bradley who had been tasked with accumulating and analyzing the results and presenting them. Of course we didn't discuss the results from Tim's co-worker or from Rob's assistants but I was a little surprised that the co-worker's results were almost opposite those of Tim, and that Rob's assistants' results were similar to each other but almost opposite those of Rob. Tim was subject #1 and Rob subject #3 – we didn't use real names for any of the subjects.

"We found that subject #1 had normal vasopressin and oxytocin receptor genes and that subject #3 had variants that are associated with promiscuous behavior," Bradley started out. That was surprising to me because if I had been told ahead of time that one would have the variant and the other no variant I would have bet that Tim would have the variant, not Rob. Angela's eyebrows also rose when Bradley said that.

"The rest of the testing, especially from the MRI and the whole body lie detector, which collaboration between psychology and engineering postulate are the most reliable, supports the genetic evaluation. You can see the details of the results in the hand-outs that you each have, but the conclusion is that Tim has about a 85-95% probability of being a faithful marriage partner while Rob has a probability of about 35-45%," Bradley continued. I found that strange too – I expected both to be in the 70%+ category. Upon subsequent questioning of Bradley by the others in the room I also found it strange that Bradley seemed to be nervous, which I chalked up to him being intimidated by three PhDs and a PhD candidate, which is who the questioners were.

I took the results to heart. I wasn't going to spend two million dollars on a project and just ignore it, so I broke it off with Rob and asked Tim for an exclusive relationship. Neither of those events went as I expected either.

Rob seemed to be genuinely upset by our break – even though I tried to make it as kind and gentle as possible. Tim, on the other hand, was very enthusiastic about an exclusive relationship and was all for it.

* * * * *

Things moved quickly with Tim after the completion of The Marriage Simulator. He asked me to marry him three months later, and since I had already had a very large, and then a large, wedding this one was small, only two months after he asked me to marry him. Before the wedding, however, I did have a "fidelity" talk with him just to make sure that he understood how important that was to me – and a paragraph about that was included in the pre-nup. He seemed fine with both the talk and the contract language.

I thought that things with Tim were going well. He significantly cut back on his work hours after we married, which I thought was a little strange, but not a real problem. It meant that I was working more hours than he was, but he seemed to keep busy and he helped out with charity events that I hosted, and was always pleasant to my business associates and friends. After about a year things were not as fiery in the bedroom as I would have hoped – based upon our sexual relationship before marriage – but it wasn't the main thing that I was looking for in a husband so I wasn't distressed by a diminution of the intensity or frequency of our love-making.

Well you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and rich girls – things went astray.

After Tim and I had been married about eighteen months, I noticed a problem in my nether regions. I immediately went to my OB/GYN. She gave me the bad news over the phone the next day. "You have chlamydia," rang in my ears at least a thousand times even though she said it only once.

There was no mystery how I had gotten it since I had only had sex with Tim for the last twenty three months. "The fucking bastard," "two million for The Marriage Simulator down the drain," and "I've got to be the most cheated on women in the state," were some of the hundreds of horrible thoughts and sound bites that constantly caromed through my mind.

The proper antibiotic treatment was delivered to my office within an hour after my doctor gave me the bad news, and within an hour after that I had the head and top operative of the most respected PI firm in the city in my office.

A sudden week long "business trip" came up so that I didn't have to interact with Tim until I got the PI's report, and I stayed with my brother Aaron since I needed comfort as well as to get away from Tim. A week was all of the time that I needed for the PI to find out that Tim regularly paid visits to a trashy slut named Jen, who he supported with my money, for all sorts of nasty sex.

I was at first devastated, then chagrined, then angry, and then livid. I'm not normally a vengeful person, to the point that I simply divorced my first two husbands rather than seeking retribution, but now I was out for revenge. What I did was way, way over the top. You can do things way, way over the top if you have scads of money.

I had a number of long time valuable employees, left over from when my parents were alive. Two of them I had known since I was a little kid, the other two (both pilots of the private jet my brother and I owned) I had known for about fifteen years. I paid all of them above market salaries and had for a long time. They were very loyal.

I told them what I had planned, and why. They didn't even flinch; in fact three of them had big shit-eating grins and admitted that they never liked Tim. I didn't tell my brother Aaron, however, so he would have plausible deniability.

Part of our holdings was a series of isolated islands in the Pacific. Why my father ever bought them, I don't know – but he did, and we never used them, although I did visit them by seaplane once. The largest – about one square mile – that we called "Bedrock," had a solid rock base, from a very, very old volcano, and was well out of the shipping lanes.

I had my employees obtain a solar powered refrigerator, and enough simple provisions (the food in the form of military MREs, not too tasty but nutritious), clothing, a rain-catching system, some bottled water until the rain-catching system could be effectively used, and a few simple tools, so that with some effort a person could live well on Bedrock for eighteen months.

One night while I was supposedly out of town on business my two longest term associates chloroformed Tim when he was leaving his chlamydia-carrying fuck buddy's apartment. They then injected him with a powerful knockout drug, and brought him to our private plane. The pilots flew to Fiji – although that's not what the flight plan said – where all of the equipment and provisions were waiting for them, rented a seaplane, and transported the still unconscious Tim and the provisions to Bedrock.