My Milf Conqueror System

The problem with being two people is that both of them want things.

Mateo Cruz wanted to survive. He wanted to do his job, cut his onions, stay invisible, climb the ladder, get closer to Camila, and not die. His wants were simple. Primal. The wants of a man who lived in a motel room on West Flagler and carried boxes for a living and didn't think about empires or Systems or women who killed men with three words.

Jake Hart wanted to conquer. He wanted to complete the mission, beat the clock, outsmart the System, seduce the woman, and not die. His wants were complicated. Layered. The wants of a man who'd built an empire and conquered nine women and was now pretending to be a man who carried boxes, and the pretending was getting harder because the wanting was getting louder.

The two wants lived in the same body and the body was the battlefield, and the battle was fought every day in the motel room when I switched from one to the other, and the switching was the thing that was tearing me apart.

I'd been Mateo Cruz for six weeks now. Six weeks of waking up at four-thirty, activating the skill, watching my face change in the bathroom mirror, and walking out the door as someone else. Six weeks of cutting onions and washing dishes and being invisible and watching Camila Rodriguez walk through the kitchen and not looking at her and not speaking to her and not being seen by her. Six weeks of going back to the motel, deactivating the skill, and being Jake Hart again for three hours before sleep, and the three hours were the only hours that were real, and the real was getting shorter.

The System didn't help. The System was quiet. It had given me the skill and the mission and the death sentence and then it had gone silent, the way it always went silent when the work was mine to do. No notifications. No reminders. No commentary. Just the clock, ticking in the background, three hundred and forty-one days remaining, and the ticking was the only sound the System made.

I called Ethan on a Saturday. I shouldn't have. The plan was no contact with the outside world. Darius had said it. I had said it. No contact because contact was risk and risk was death. But six weeks without hearing Ethan's voice was six weeks too long, and the loneliness of being Mateo Cruz had built up in my chest like water behind a dam, and the dam cracked.

I called from the payphone on SW 7th. I activated the skill. Mateo Cruz's voice spoke. But the phone rang and Ethan answered and the voice that came through the speaker was Ethan, my Ethan, my best friend, the only person who'd talked to me when I was invisible, and hearing his voice made the dam break completely.

"Who is this?" Ethan said. He didn't recognize the number. He didn't recognize the voice.

"It's me," I said. "Don't hang up."

"Me who? I don't know this number."

"Ethan. It's me."

"Jake? Jake, is that you? Your voice sounds different. Are you okay? Where have you been? It's been six weeks. Six weeks, man. Nobody knows where you are. Claire's losing her mind. Darius won't say anything. Nia's been trying to trace your phone but it's off. What the hell is going on?"

I closed my eyes. Mateo Cruz's face. Mateo Cruz's voice. But the words were Jake Hart's words, and the feelings behind the words were Jake Hart's feelings, and the disconnect between the face and the feelings was the thing that was breaking me.

"I can't tell you where I am. I can't tell you what I'm doing. I just needed to hear your voice."

"Jake, are you in trouble?"

"I'm always in trouble. But I'm handling it. I need you to trust me."

"Trust you? You disappeared for six weeks. Claire thinks you're dead. Darius is acting weird, weirder than normal Darius, which is already weird. Nia locked herself in her room for three days. And you call me from a number I don't know with a voice I barely recognize and say trust me?"

"Ethan. Please."

The phone was quiet. I could hear Ethan breathing. I could hear the television in the background, the sound of a game he'd been watching, the ordinary sound of an ordinary life that I wasn't part of anymore because I was living in a motel room pretending to be a man named Mateo Cruz.

"Are you safe?" Ethan said.

"I'm safe."

"Are you lying?"

"I'm safe enough."

"That's not the same thing."

"I know. But it's what I can give you."

Ethan was quiet again. The game played in the background. Someone scored. The crowd cheered. The cheer was the sound of a world that didn't know about Camila Rodriguez or the System or the year or the death, and the not-knowing was the thing that kept that world safe, and keeping it safe was the reason I was standing on a sidewalk in Little Havana with a different face.

"Jake."

"Yeah."

"Whatever you're doing, come back."

"I will."

"When?"

"I don't know yet."

"That's not good enough."

"It's what I have."

Ethan breathed. The game played. The world turned. I stood on the sidewalk and held the phone and felt the distance between us, the distance that wasn't miles but was something worse, the distance of a man who was here and not here, who was present and absent, who was Jake Hart and Mateo Cruz and neither and both.

"I miss you," Ethan said.

"I miss you too."

"Then come home."

"I can't. Not yet. But I will. I promise."

"Your promises used to mean something."

"They still do."

"Prove it."

"I will. When I come back. I'll prove it."

Ethan was quiet. Then he said, "Claire asks about you every day. Every day, Jake. She asks Darius and Darius says nothing and she asks Nia and Nia says nothing and she asks me and I say nothing because I don't know anything, and the nothing is eating her alive. She doesn't know if you're alive or dead or hurt or in trouble, and the not-knowing is the worst thing, Jake. The not-knowing is worse than knowing, even if knowing is bad."

I held the phone. The phone was the only thing keeping me connected to the world I'd left behind, and the connection was a thread, and the thread was thin, and the thinness was the thing that made it precious and the thing that made it dangerous.

"Tell Claire I'm alive. Don't tell her anything else. Just that I'm alive and I'm coming back."

"That's not enough for her."

"It's what I can give."

"It's not enough."

"I know."

We were quiet. The game ended. The television went to commercials. The commercials were loud and bright and full of things that didn't matter, and the not-mattering was the thing that separated the world I was in from the world Ethan was in, and the separation was the thing I'd chosen, and the choosing was the thing I had to live with.

"I gotta go," I said.

"Jake, wait."

"I can't wait. I've been on this phone too long. I have to go."

"Will you call again?"

"I don't know. Maybe. If I can."

"If you can? Jake, you disappeared for six weeks. You can't call once and then disappear again. That's not fair."

"I know it's not fair. None of this is fair. But fair isn't the point. The point is staying alive, and staying alive means staying hidden, and staying hidden means I can't call you whenever I want, and the wanting is constant, Ethan, the wanting to call you and hear your voice and be Jake Hart again for five minutes, but I can't, because five minutes of Jake Hart is five minutes of risk, and risk is death, and death is the penalty, and the penalty is real."

Ethan was quiet. Then he said, "Just come back, Jake. Whatever it is, whatever you're doing, just come back. We're here. We've always been here. The whiteboard is still here. The four of us. We're here."

"I know."

"Then act like it."

I hung up. I put the phone down. I stood on SW 7th Street in Little Havana and felt the tears on Mateo Cruz's face and the tears were Jake Hart's tears and the face wasn't mine and the tears weren't mine and everything was mixed up, the two men bleeding into each other, the edges blurring, the distinction between Jake and Mateo getting thinner with every day that passed.

I walked back to the motel. I deactivated the skill. Jake Hart looked back at me from the mirror. The face was mine. The tears were mine. The loneliness was mine.

Three hundred and forty-one days. Three hundred and forty-one days of being two people. Three hundred and forty-one days of cutting onions and carrying boxes and not calling Ethan and not calling Claire and not being Jake Hart except for three hours at night in a motel room that smelled like mildew.

I could do it. I had to do it. The alternative was death.

I went to sleep. Tomorrow I'd be Mateo Cruz again. And the day after that. And the day after that. One day at a time. One face at a time. One man at a time.

Two men. One body. One year. One chance.