It hasn’t been that long since Jonathan moved away from his mother’s home. For the first time he was living in his own apartment. Well, renting it didn’t make any of that “his” property in the literal sense, but he felt like he finally had something of his own, maybe a sense of personal freedom. It wasn’t a big place, or even that particularly beautiful, but it was located in a centric area of the city, nothing fancy but it was all he could afford for now, and a step up compared to the place he’s been living for so many years, in the outskirts of the city. Before him, in the apartment lived a family who obviously had no respect for cleaning or maintaining any of the broken kitchen electronics that were handed down to him when he moved in, along with some dirty, old fashioned furniture. Some of the electronics didn’t even work, like the washing machine, but replacing it didn’t even cross his mind, as he wasn’t even sure if he could afford the apartment beyond a few months, and he could always use a laundromat around the corner for his needs anyway.

  The phone’s alarm went off, even though he had been awake for several minutes. Jonathan jumped out of bed, took a shower, and dragged the electric razor on his face, despite the fact that no hair was visible in his face. He dressed up quickly, as he had left his clothes for today ready the previous night, something unusual for him as he was not the type of person to put much thought into his own fashion, but that was a special day. Moving despite being broke was part of the motivation plan to change certain aspects of his life, like finding a job with a decent income. Up to that point, he had been working temp jobs, including but not limited to helping his uncle run the liquor store, something he started doing more regularly since the day he decided to stop going to school, becoming a high school dropout, much to the disapproval of the two parental figures in his life, his mother and uncle. That was about to change. Deciding to better his life, he spent days indiscriminately sending his résumé to multiple companies of the area, for job opportunities that were obviously out of his reach, with the intention of reaching as many people as possible and hoping someone would take the bait. After all, it didn’t matter that he wasn’t qualified, since he had his little secret to take care of any and all problems that might arise during it. In the end, one single company showed any interest, but that was enough for him. Today was the date of the interview, and he was confident that he was going to get the job; so much so that he informed his Uncle he was not going to work at the store anymore. He put on a white shirt, brand new dark blue skinny suit and used his phone to look online for a video tutorial on how to tie a tie, which he followed on his skinny black tie that clashed with the suit. He stood before the door that exited his apartment, checked the items of his pockets one last time, making sure he wasn’t missing anything important:

  –Phone, wallet, home keys, car keys, cigs and… The recorder. That’s everything.

  And then he left the apartment, completely unaware of the fact that his hair was all dishevelled.

  It was his first time in front of that large building in the skyscraper district. A golden plaque next to the door displayed a list of all the different companies it housed. He searched the list for the name of the company he had a schedule with, and found it. In fine but large text, one of the plaques had the name "OmniCore Solutions" engraved in black, next to a minimalist logo: an octagon representing the letter "O," and inside, a smaller octagon missing its right edge, giving it the appearance of a "C." Before he could pinpoint exactly what the logo reminded him of, he looked up to check how tall the building was. From street level, it seemed as tall as a skyscraper, though it wasn’t one, but it was entirely made of glass.

  The building and its surroundings felt strange and new to him, like everything else in the upper part of the city. He had grown up in humble streets, but if he got the job, he would have to come here every day, for who knows how long. This part of the city would become as familiar to him as the old neighborhood where he was raised.

  He had arrived an hour early, so he waited around the corner, smoking before going in. The street was crowded with people very different from those he was used to seeing. All the passersby seemed extremely focused, looking straight ahead in silence, dressed in suits and carrying briefcases. He got the impression that these people must earn a lot of money, each of their salaries seemingly proportional to how busy they appeared as they walked. He felt he had little in common with them, yet he still wanted to belong in that world.

  The first thing he saw upon entering the building was the receptionist's desk. With her head down, she was staring intently at a monitor while typing at an incredible speed on a loud keyboard. He approached her and noticed that she smelled nice. Maybe he should have put on some perfume or at least some deodorant. But now it was too late for that.

  After a few seconds of nothing happening, he cleared his throat. The girl with long dark hair looked up.

  –I’m here for a job interview,– he informed her.

  –Where?– she asked with disdain.

  –At OmniCore Solutions.

  –Name.

  –OmniCore Solutions?

  –No, your name.

  –Oh! Jonathan.

  –Mmhm– she confirmed, lowering her gaze back to the screen. She started typing. She pressed too many keys for it to be just his name. The wait felt eternal, and he got the impression that the girl had already forgotten he was there.

  Finally, she looked up, and with contempt, raised her arm and pointed to a single-seat sofa where he could sit and wait.

  An hour passed before he started to think that maybe they had forgotten about him. He had almost left a couple of times or at least gone back to reception to ask if the interview was still on, but he had refrained out of embarrassment, fearing that his interviewer might appear at any moment.

  The elevator doors opened, and a man stepped out, asking for his name. Jonathan stood up and shook hands with the man, who had a thick beard and a fitted suit. He gripped Jonathan’s hand firmly, piercing him with a gaze filled with honest self-confidence, which made Jonathan feel slightly inferior in the face of such a difference in power dynamics.

  After the introductions, he followed the man into the elevator, and they went up to a floor filled with cubicles, where people were typing away at their computers. The already loud keyboards now created a deafening noise.

  They walked through the narrow hallways formed by the space between cubicles until they reached a large conference room with an imposing oval table in the center. The office chairs scattered haphazardly around it suggested that the room had been used recently. A projector on the table cast bar graphs into one of the walls, but the sunlight streaming through the large window made it nearly impossible to make out what was written on it.

  Without giving it much thought, he simply sat in the chair closest to the door he had just walked through.

  –Sorry for the wait, Jonathan. –Said the man in the suit with a smirk. –We are very busy, you know? –As soon as he realized that the projector was still on, he picked up a small remote control from the table and pressed the button that turned off the device.

  –Yeah, I understand. –Jonathan replied, returning the smile, as if he wanted to imitate him.

  –If you didn’t want to have waited so long, you shouldn’t have arrived so early.

  The man sat on the other side of the table, in front of him. One he did, it seemed to Jonathan as if suddenly the table was too high, or his chair was too low. He didn’t reply to that out-of-place comment. He knew he had arrived at the indicated time, since he had had to wait outside in order to enter at the agreed time, and he didn’t quite understand the intention of his interviewer.

  –Well, –he continued after an uncomfortable silence – my name is Barney, I’m something like the boss here.

  “Like one of the protagonists of The Flintstones,” thought Jonathan to himself, trying to anchor that name to a specific memory, which would help him not forget it later. He had a terrible memory for names, unlike his “other self,” who seemed to have a photographic memory.

  –I’m going to be honest with you. –Barney continued – Your resume hasn’t impressed us. You don’t seem to have much experience in the field of computing, but this interview is more to evaluate your attitude than your knowledge. And you wouldn’t have applied for the interview if you didn’t meet the requirements we asked for, right?

  –Of course, yeah. –Jonathan nodded, hiding his nerves. The interview was for a computer science position, and he had only applied because he had heard that the salary was good, but he had no knowledge of computing. Luckily, he had his secret weapon, a plan that had never failed him before.

  He put his hand in his pocket and grabbed the small audio recorder he carried everywhere. He had already memorized which button to press to start recording just by touch, and he pressed it. He brought the recorder to the pocket of his shirt, where it could record the entire conversation in the room with better quality, and finally closed his eyes and wished the job interview would go well.

  What happened next was no longer in his hands.

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  When he opened his eyes, the interview was over. For him, it had been just a blink, but he was now standing next to the elevator door. He looked down and saw that he was shaking hands with the man in the suit.

  –...at that. I expect great things from you. –Barney concluded a half-finished sentence, bidding him farewell with smiles. At least he seemed happy.

  Accustomed to situations like this, he understood what was happening, said goodbye, and got into the elevator that would take him back to the ground floor as quickly as possible, before the man could ask him something that would expose his lack of memory of the last moments that had passed.

  He arrived at the place where he had parked the car, an old dull yellow compact car that belonged to his uncle but, after buying a new one, he had allowed Jonathan to use it. Like everything Jonathan owned, it was obsolete and of poor quality, but he kept it clean and functional, and he hardly could ask for more.

  In any case, he never took long trips and rarely left the city and its outskirts, so his biggest problem was finding a place to park. Whenever he drove, he respected the speed limits. In fact, he had never had any trouble with the law, perhaps because his introverted personality made him want to avoid drawing attention, although while using his ability he didn’t always succeed.

  He sat in the driver's seat and, without starting the engine, took the recorder out of his pocket. It showed that it had been recording audio for 40 minutes, though to him, it only felt like 3 had passed since he pressed the record button.

  He finally stopped the recording and plugged a pair of earphones into the small device; ones he always kept in the glove compartment specifically for situations like this. He navigated through the menu to the most recent audio and, reclining in his seat to get more comfortable, pressed the play button.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  In the audio, Jonathan continued carrying on the conversation with Barney. He answered his interviewer’s questions with an eloquence, intelligence, and charisma that he envied, even if he was, ironically, only jealous of himself. He joked, showed interest, and even when asked technical questions about programming languages or software he had no knowledge of, he was able to deduce from context what they were about and skillfully navigate any question.

  Once he caught up to the part he remembered, he turned the recorder off.

  He’s done it again.

  He remembered nothing about that interview, but he had used the ability he had discovered he possessed as a child to get through the situation successfully. He was not particularly proud of it, as in his experience, that ability was something that had brought him trouble when used indiscriminately and selfishly, but this time he had everything planned out. This time nothing could go wrong. He drove home, listening to the recording over and over again, trying to memorize the names and concepts that were expected of him to know, such as programming languages, software, and systems. That made him realize how much he still had left to learn. The charisma he had demonstrated while in an altered state of consciousness that he did not remember was the only thing that had gotten him that second interview, but to prove that he deserved the job, he would have to know certain things he had never shown any interest in learning. In fact, he did not like studying at all. It was true that he had passed all his subjects as a child, but by using an ability under the effects of which he had no memory, and as such did not allow him to retain any knowledge acquired over the years. He had reached adulthood on the very edge of pure ignorance.

  But in this new job he was expected, among other things, to repair and set up the computers in offices around the city, and to have knowledge of the software that said offices used in their day to day. He only had an obsolete laptop that he barely used for browsing the internet.

  He went home and spent a few hours researching from his laptop videos related to the subject until night had fallen, but found videos of a man with a foreign accent explaining what a spreadsheet is to be tremendously boring, full of words and concepts he completely did not understand, and after a while his mind would completely disconnect from the information he was receiving, totally and completely ignoring the information he was seeing and hearing. He also could not "wish" to learn it and have his ability take care of studying it, since the very nature of his ability prevented him from remembering what he had learned during the moments his wish was being fulfilled, making it a useless task.

  He finally gave up. He knew perfectly well that he was going to use his power during his second interview and during the necessary moments to carry out his job, if he even got it. For now, trying to learn in just a few days what takes years to master was a titanic task for someone like him, and admitting it was not a problem for him. He was aware of his limitations and used them as an excuse to never have to make an effort to learn anything that his ability could not do for him, and that allowed him to more easily reach the conclusion that any and all effort was simply a waste of time. Especially when he could be, for example, having a good time somewhere livelier than that sad and poorly decorated apartment. For example, drinking in his favorite bar.

  From outside the establishment, the constant beat of an electronic drum could be heard thudding from the speakers placed in the four upper corners of the small bar. Though muffled by the walls of the place, every now and then the rest of the instruments would come to the forefront when the door opened to let one of the patrons in or out, most of them men. Some of the customers gathered outside, drinking while standing near the entrance, undoubtedly driven away by the music in search of a place where they could hold a conversation without having to shout into each other’s ears. Already accustomed to this, he was not bothered by the door being blocked by people, and he made his way through with murmured ‘excuse me’-s and light taps on shoulders to get inside. One of the regulars, a broad black man wearing a t-shirt two sizes too small for what seemed comfortable for him, without a doubt, a choice made to further accentuate his muscles giving him an intimidating presence, was talking to another customer when he caught sight of Jonathan approaching the main door without the slightest subtlety.

  –Ah! It’s you. Come on in, come on in. –The man stepped aside, and Jonathan was able to enter the establishment.

  He did not know the man’s name, but he knew that something had happened in the past that had earned him the favor of the staff and regulars of the bar. That was why it was his favorite place; he was an unofficial VIP, well-liked by everyone after an incident in which he had used his ability to de-escalate a situation that would have ended in disaster if not for his intervention. He did not remember exactly what had happened, but not having to recount it made him seem more modest among those who did remember, so this was one of the rare occasions when he did not mind having no memory after using his ability. He only recalled that two men were about to fight over a woman they had both laid claim to as if she were a prize at a fair, and he had wished for nothing bad to happen. When he opened his eyes after making the wish, it would have been hard to believe that those two men had not been best friends for years; they laughed, embraced, and in the end, left the club together, never to return.

  Jonathan’s personality changed completely when he used his ability, becoming much more friendly, charming, and popular. Though it was not because that was his true nature in those moments, but rather because he did so selfishly and automatically, with the sole objective of fulfilling whatever he had wished for. It was for this reason that he had given up on naming that other personality of his, the one he had no memories of, because it was not a real person, but a tool. An altered state of consciousness that would stop at nothing to achieve its goal; mechanical and without prejudice. Like a robot that did not feel fear, shame, or laziness, nor did it fear the repercussions of its actions, and therefore did not suffer from anxiety or have any trouble deceiving others to get what it wanted. It was impossible to deny that, whatever that mental ability he possessed was, it accomplished its purpose and produced results. But even he was aware that the excessive use of it during his adolescence had led, over the years, to a series of social impairments that were difficult to undo past a certain age. He had used his ability to take shortcuts in life, helping him pass classes without learning anything, since he did not remember doing assignments or passing exams. He had managed to take women to bed whom he did not remember courting, which left him with no social skills, and it was very difficult for him to start conversations with strangers. The constant abuse of his ability seemed to keep him trapped in a very specific moment of his life from which he could not escape.

  –What’ll it be, Jonathan? –Asked the barman from behind the counter.

  –The usual. –He smiled. The bartender, a young and attractive guy, usually caught the attention of all the female customers in the place. Perhaps the dark atmosphere of the bar gave him a mysterious air, made his smile shine a little more, his hair a little more perfectly tousled, his eyes more piercing when they locked onto someone's gaze. But he always wondered if he looked at him in a special way, or if he innately made everyone feel equally special, equally unique. Did he smile like that at the girls who ordered “the usual,” or was it only towards guys? Or maybe… only towards Jonathan?

  –How did the interview go? –Asked the bartender, placing the empty glass in front of him, along with a beer bottle.

  He was surprised that the bartender had remembered he had a job interview. It was true that he told him everything as if he were a psychologist, but he didn’t expect him to remember anything from their interactions.

  –Great, I think I’ve got it in the bag. –He had to shout his reply over the music, raising his glass in a toast.

  –That calls for a celebration –The bartender smiled, showing him a glass he had hidden under the counter, which he usually took small sips from throughout the night. But before he could bring it to his lips, he was interrupted by another customer.

  –Excuse me? –A young woman in a provocative dress appeared next to him, interrupting the conversation.

  Unlike other women who seemed to be enjoying the night, this girl appeared to be in a bad mood. Even when the bartender offered her a kind smile and asked what she would like to drink, she responded in a cold and sharp tone.

  –Martini with cola. –She ordered, without bothering to say "please."

  –Right away. –The bartender concluded as he walked away.

  She might have been young and attractive, but her beauty didn’t hide her unpleasant attitude. It seemed something had upset her, and she wasn’t willing to let it go so easily. As she took her drink, her eyes drifted to the other side of the bar, as if waiting for someone to appear.

  Jonathan and the bartender exchanged glances, silently agreeing that something was wrong and that they should try to fix it. The bartender turned back to her.

  –Is something wrong? –He asked casually.

  –Nothing. A creep. I should be used to it by now, but what can ya do.

  –Don’t worry. –He replied in a calm tone, like speaking to a child upset over a trivial matter. –Point him out to me, and I’ll take care of it.

  –No, leave it. It’ll be worse if I call him out and he gets mad at me. –She said, but she kept looking towards the end of the bar, where a group of men were talking and laughing loudly after glancing in her direction and exchanging words among themselves.

  –Assholes… –Jonathan muttered to no one in particular after witnessing the group’s behavior. She looked at him with a disdainful air and clicked her tongue, as if his comment came from someone no better than the people he was criticizing. He got the message but wasn’t offended, turning his attention back to his drink and the bartender.

  –You know? Tomorrow is my birthday. –Informed Jonathan, trying to change the topic of conversation.

  –Is that right? Well this one’s on the house.– Said the barman with a friendly smile, serving not one, but two drinks, one for Jonathan, the other for the woman. She stared at them for a moment, but finally let her guard down and smiled for the first time, drinking the shot.

  Hours later, long past closing time, the bartender had turned off the music and partially closed the shutter so no more customers would enter. The only ones left inside were Jonathan, the girl, and the bartender, sitting at a table after spending hours talking about unimportant things. Her attitude had changed over time, letting herself be carried away by the mutual friendship of the two men, who treated her like just another member of the group rather than trying to hit on her or compete for her approval.

  For hours, they had talked about movies and music. About everything and nothing. They had drunk, danced, laughed, gotten melancholic, and then recovered to laugh some more. They had talked about many things, except about themselves. They knew perfectly well what TV shows each of them had been obsessed with but not personal details like names, jobs, studies, or relationships. As if by a silent pact, they had agreed without words that real life would not interfere in this spontaneous new friendship, and any idea about each other’s personalities could only be assumed through their personal tastes.

  Jonathan liked action movies; kung fu, gunfights, explosions. Films where one person was the hero, the other the villain, and in the end, the hero always got the girl and saved the innocent.

  The bartender, on the other hand, preferred classic cinema. He had recommended black-and-white films featuring detectives in long coats and hats, walking through the shadows of cities to untangle webs of lies, corruption, and femme fatales.

  She liked comedies. Romantic comedies, where the girl and the guy argue in the middle of the movie but always end up together in the end, and absurd comedies. She tried to retell the jokes but they were never as funny as they were on screen. Even so, Jonathan and the bartender laughed, perhaps helped by the alcohol.

  After finishing their last conversation with what seemed like a period at the end of a sentence, the atmosphere changed. In silence, they stared at their glasses, avoiding eye contact, each wondering, “Now what?”

  No one wanted the night to end. It had been fun. But which of them would be the first to break the awkward silence and offer the girl to go have one last drink at their place? Or maybe she would be the one to choose who to leave with? After all, they weren’t going to stay there all night. But they kept quiet, afraid that any suggestion might be interpreted as something more intimate, fearing rejection. If someone was going to say something, they had to do it quickly, before the other did.

  Jonathan could easily use his ability. He was drunk, but it seemed like the best way to come out of this as the clear winner in the competition to take the girl to bed. And to be honest, it wasn’t the first time he had used the ability for this purpose, and he was sure it would work. It always did.

  So, without thinking too much about the consequences, he closed his eyes and whispered his wish under his breath.

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  Even before opening his eyes, he felt a wave of sensations on his whole body. Like a bucket of ice just got dropped on him, an electric wave ran down his spine top to bottom, forcing him to arch his back and curl his toes, that, along with the initial confusion led by the sudden change of positions usually took a few seconds to get used to, but was this time exacerbated by the sudden change of orientation, like when, in just a blink of the eye, he suddenly changed from sitting into laying down. He now felt himself laying on something soft, hot and wet. He opened his eyes and confirmed that, as a matter of fact, his wish had been granted once more without any effort on his part.

  He was naked, with his hard member in the process of being introduced inside of the girl he spent the night talking to, this beautiful girl who had told him her name, but he’s since forgotten, as she laid face up on the bed with her legs open and her hands on the back of his head, gently caressing his hair. The sudden change in verticality was still not a completely unexpected result; that’s what he expected would happen when making his wish, so he got used to it fast, understanding the situation and penetrating her deeper. She moaned, grabbing his hair now harder, her mouth as open as her eyes, throwing her own head back. He took the opportunity to join his lips to hers, still staying deep inside her, and touch tongues.

  Eventually his body calmed down, and after relaxing his muscles he tried to pull out. That’s when he noticed his back wasn’t simply exposed to the open air, as he would have expected, but instead something was pushing against him, preventing him from moving back, a weight on top of him.

  He didn’t get the chance to count the number of arms until now. If he had, maybe he would have noticed two extra arms wrapped around him from behind, and maybe he would have followed those arms to a new body, and the other head laying its chin on his shoulder. He turned to look at it, and saw the face of the barman. His first reaction was to pull away from it, not because of disgust but because of surprise having not expected someone’s face so close to his own. Then kissed his face, and felt himself being penetrated from behind. That was a new sensation he had never experienced before, never having been with a guy in bed before tonight, not for a lack of fantasizing about it. He relaxed further, deciding to let the man take control of the situation. She was looking at the two men and smiling, obviously extremely turned on by the whole situation, as the three bodies seemed to fuse into each other, into a single, sweaty mess from which Jonathan would have had trouble differentiating where one person ended and the next one began. They groaned and moaned while squirming, fucking each other like one big beating heart, changing positions every few minutes until they all had done everything it was to be done with everyone else on that bed. And once they climaxed, one after the other, that fusion of bodies relaxed, weighing down on top of each other, and they fell asleep.