You're Real, and I Love You

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I was doing pretty well at the compound as a junior technician. If I close 100,000 credits in the next six months, senior tech was a guarantee. If I keep that up for a year, overseeing tech, and in two years, I’ll have my own team of techs and take a piece of all the credits they close. I thought that’s what happiness was, having a goal to strive for. Then I found love, and it destroyed me. But it’s all I ever could have hoped for.  

It started like most of the text conversations with my marks, some innocent wrong. I don’t know where they get the phone numbers from, but the algorithm has a way of finding the most hopeless dreamers. The handbook has me play it cool for a while. We can even video chat with them using a CGI avatar. I usually flip between a coy, plain looking brunette waitress in her thirties with green eyes and a greying, somewhat muscled pharmacist in his forties. I usually keep the names sexually ambiguous; Alex, Mackenzie, and my personal favourite, Remy, the Parisian waitress or pharmacist, as the case may be.  

Right now, I’m female Remy for the evening. I have been working this one veterinarian from Milwaukee for a few weeks. He just went through a nasty divorce. The wife is seeking custody of their four kids and an ungodly amount of alimony. Veterinarians make a lot of money apparently and this guy ripe.  

I am one perfectly placed request away from being able to fully earn his trust. Then, it’s all gravy. I can see it all playing out in front of me like clockwork. But for whatever reason, on that particular evening, he was wearing this asinine hat. This really dumb looking thing, like the kind people use to go ice fishing, but smaller and more petite. My mother used to have one just like it. She would wear it in those Duluth winters when we went to some shitty restaurant as a big night out. I guess it make her feel fancy. I always thought it made her look like someone trying to impersonate a lynx.  

“My kids got it for me,” he said wistfully. I can tell that he’s welling up with emotion at the thought of his cherished children. “They say it makes me look like Davey Crockett, you know, king of the wild frontier.” 

“Your kids have good taste,” I say, and then I tell him about my mother. It’s not unusual to use little snippets of my real life to make the whole rouse seem more real. But what happens next, I can’t explain. I open up like a goddam lily in spring about my mother and that damned hat. It was, after all, the last hat she wore. She was killed in that stupid hat, crossing the street in mid-winter. Some drunk plowed right through her and kept going like she was nothing.  

And she was, nothing. The only people that cared were me and the Department of Social Services, not that you could even remotely call them a part of humanity. It’s funny how it took them months to answer letters when it came to setting up her disability payments. But as soon as they got word of her death, they acted pretty quick to cut her, and me, right off their balance sheet.  

Before I know it, I’m blubbering like a child to Milwaukee Veterinarian. Real, forceful, and involuntary tears and convulsions are etching themselves in my face. So much so that my avatar is having trouble catching up. Between sobs, I catch a peak of my beard through the CGI mask that is Remy’s beautiful Parisian face.  

Fuck, I think. I’m blown. It’s over. I make up an excuse about having to run an errand and I hang up. Shit. Shit. Shit. Did he not see the glitch? Was he not paying attention? I mean, it was plain as day.  

I log out of my encrypted platforms and walk out of my room. Walking down the hall, another junior technician passes me, this little pixie girl named Twyla. We give each other that little cordial nod that people give their co-workers. I walk down to the end of the hall and talk to Rhonda behind her Plexi.  

“I need a day pass,” I say to Rhonda, who is reading some smut novel. I can tell from the cover depicting a busty woman posing lasciviously on the back of a horse.  

“It’s night,” says Rhonda, not looking up.  

“Well, a night pass then,” I retort. Rhonda grunts and puts her book down. She makes a couple of clicks on the computer to log the exit.  

“Here ya go,” she says, handing me the little card which I will need to leave and re-enter the compound. 

“That’s your last pass this month, by the way.” 

“I’m aware,” I saw, trying to hide my disdain for her.  

Two hours later I am sitting alone at my usual bar, this slimy little place called Lickity Split. The booze is cheap and the bar is long. No one except the bartender bothers me. I keep thinking about Milwaukee Veterinarian. I send him a message to tell him I’m sorry for cutting our conversation short and that we should talk tomorrow. I’m not supposed to use my phone outside of the compound. They have VPNs in there that mask my exact location. Not out here in the real world. But what the hell. I fully expect him to ghost me anyways. To my surprise, he responds right away with a thumbs up.  

“Thanks for sharing about your mother,” he says.  

“Heart emoji,” is my reply.  

Satisfied enough with the response, I am content to leave Milwaukee Veterinarian alone for the evening. I am also feeling pleased with myself, managing to keep this guy on the hook. I am just drunk enough to walk past the neon signs of the massage parlour and perform well enough without wasting my money. I take my wallet out and slap it down on the bar to let the bartender know I am ready to settle.  

My wallet falls open, and there it is again, that silly, good for nothing, bobcat fur hat. It's the only picture I have of my mother and me. We’re standing in front of the big lights of the Ferris wheel at the winter carnival. We’re both big people as it is, but with the big burly coats to stave off the cold, we look like two marshmallow people getting ready to be toasted by the lit Ferris wheel.  

My thoughts are interrupted by a visitor. Someone sits down next to me. No one every sits down next to me. Not in a neighbourhood like this, next to a guy that looks like me. I instantly get a hint of something fragrant, cinnamon or something musky. I look up from the photo and to my surprise, it’s Twyla, the little pixie from the compound. I am so surprised I don’t know what to say, so I just look at her. It's against the rules, what she is doing now.  

“I have a confession,” she says.  

“You shouldn’t be here,” I respond blankly.

“I’m Tom,” she responds.  

“Tom?” 

“The Veterinarian from Milwaukee.” 

I start to look incredulous and make a move to stand from the barstool. She puts a hand on mine as I reach for my wallet and touch the picture of my mother.  

“Wait, let me explain,” she says with a hint of urgency in her voice. I stop moving.  

“It was a training exercise. They have seen how good you have been doing. They want to find out your methods, and they can’t record the video calls without risking that the marks find out. So, they asked me to pose as Tom and then record it for training.” 

“This is so fucked up,” I say, well aware of the irony that I should be upset with my dirtbag employer for underhanded tactics.  

“I am supposed to report you. For messaging outside of the compound. That’s how I found you. But honestly, I can’t,” she says her eyes downcast and her small girlish hand exerting more than a little pressure on my big meat hook.  

“Why not,” I say, knowing full well that she would be in the right to report me, even if the company was spying on me for no good reason.  

“Your mother,” says Twyla. “The tears and the pain you felt. They were real. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.” 

Again, I am dumbstruck. No one, and especially no desirable female, which Twyla most certainly was, has ever described me or anything about me as beautiful. 

“I want you to come with me to the Motel across the street. I am going to get us a room.” 

My heart is now pounding with excitement. I am like puddy in this little angel’s hand. I pay my tab and she leads me to the Motel. The next few hours are a total blur. She makes everything so easy. It is like she is able to telepathically communicate to me her wants and desires and I instinctively comply. 

I’ve never been able to last this long with any woman, mind you they have mostly been whores and want me to get off as soon as possible. Twyla manages to keep us entwined, hovering on the cusp of completion for so long I think my chest is going to explode, that my calves are going to burst, and the coratid artery in my neck is going to pop. And then, blissfully, she lets me finish and I collapse in a heap of contentment on top of the bristly motel blanket cover. 

The alarm on my phone rings, telling me I need to get back to the compound. I have been asleep for the remaining four hours of my pass. I look beside me, fully expecting Twyla to be gone, for this to all be some sort of dream. But she is still there.  

She wakes up and makes coffee from that cheap little machine all motels have. We put them in to-go cups and we walk back to the compound. At one point, she slips her hand into mine and I squeeze, enjoying the symbiosis of two people sauntering in the early morning, drinking coffee in post-coital simplicity.  

We get to the compound and I take out the card that Rhonda had given me. It doesn’t work. I try again. And again. I press the intercom. There is no response.  

“What the fuck,” I say, irritably tapping the card on the reader.  

“You won’t be let in,” says Twyla. “Your credits are gone, too. I’m sorry. I really am.” Twyla holds my hand tight now. My confusion and anger are about to boil over. Then, as if to get one last look at her contemptuous face, I see her eyes. They are brilliant green and looking at me with the most solemn and genuine compassion I have ever seen. I exhale deeply and my shoulders drop. I know she is right. I know she is sorry. I know she loves me.  

“What do I do now,” I say, defeat taking hold of my whole body.  

“You can come with me, Monte. I will take care of you. What we have is real. I will make sure they see that, even if that means you need to earn back their trust.”   

THE END