Loyalty Test

1. Chapter One

~Jennifer~

The musician I’d been flirting with online for two days texted me back at 1:37 in the morning.

The message alert interrupted a particularly fun dream where Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and I were chilling on a girl’s night. We were just about to get into the really juicy gossip when reality came crashing back in.

Groggily, I reached over to my bedside table and grabbed the phone to read his message.

Just finished writing a new chorus for a song. Want me to play it for you?

Squinting at the screen in the darkness, I managed to type out a coherent reply.

OMG, am I the first person who gets to hear it?

You know it. I wrote it for you. Video chat?

With a groan, I sat up and grabbed my emergency supplies from next to the bed. Push-up bra, lip gloss, concealer under my eyes and a quick brush through my hair did the trick, and I hit record on my phone before hitting the call button.

“Fuck, you look gorgeous.” A cigarette hung from his lips as he answered my call, his phone already set up so he could sit back with his guitar, the dim lighting working to his advantage. With his shoulder-length hair, dark stubble on his chin and bright blue eyes, he looked good and he knew it. “You’d look even better if I were there in bed with you.”

The pout of my lips had been practiced in the mirror a hundred times before. “If your song’s good enough, maybe you can be.”

He flashed me a grin that could break hearts before beginning to strum on his guitar. The song wasn’t half-bad, actually, but my eyes kept flicking up to the top of the screen, making sure I recorded every second.

“What do you think?” He grabbed a nearby beer bottle as soon as the song had finished, taking a long swig.

“I think…” I drew out the silence, batting my eyelashes a few times for good measure. “No song has ever turned me on so much. You said you’re single, right?”

He grinned again, his eyes flashing away from the screen for just a second. “Absolutely. So, you wanna come over and hear it again in person? Or maybe we could just…”

He just said the magic words. With the ease of practice, I ended the call, stopped the recording, and blocked the asshole in a matter of seconds.

Fully awake by that point, I took screenshots of the texts and sent them along with the video recording to the woman who’d put me in touch with him in the first place.

The bastard’s fiancée.

I hate when things go this way, but you deserve to know the truth.

The message went to read immediately, as if she’d been waiting for it. I sat patiently in the stillness of my room, waiting for her reply in case she wanted to talk or needed a shoulder to cry on. Some women needed to be talked down from murder. Others just needed to know they weren’t alone. I could never predict how someone would react when they found they’d fallen for a lying, cheating piece of shit.

However, when her response came, I could only describe it as stoic.

Thanks. It hurts, but I expected it. I guess the wedding’s off.

That’s your call.

I never gave any advice to the women who hired me to test their man’s loyalty. I did my job and left it there. Only they would know the right path for them.

You want to know the worst part? That’s not even a new song. He wrote it a year ago, and he said he wrote it for me.

That didn’t seem like the worst part to me, but I could understand it must have stung.

You deserve better. And if you decide to end things, there are good men out there, I promise.

They were heavily outnumbered by the creeps and losers, in my experience, but I didn’t add that part. No need to kick someone when they were down.

I hope so.

A defeated-looking emoji accompanied her reply.

Did you find one?

Pain tugged at my heart, just for a second, as I glanced at the empty space in my bed next to me.

Yeah, I found one. You will too. Good luck, Sarah.

Thanks, Jen.

I always left the door open for women to come back to me later on if they wanted to chat more, but they rarely did. Talking with me only reminded them of one of the most painful moments in their lives. I understood that .

Some men did pass my tests, but not as often as I would have liked, and pretty much never when I received a text from them at 1:37 am.

Nothing good ever came from texting a stranger after midnight.

After the interruption to my sleep, I woke up later than usual the next morning, but it didn’t really make a difference to anyone other than me. My loyalty tests had become a full-time job, letting me work from home and set my own hours. On the one hand, it saddened me that so many women felt the need to use my services, but on the other hand, it paid the bills. All in all, I couldn’t complain too much.

Bright California sunshine streamed in my kitchen window where I turned on my coffee maker and grabbed an apple off the counter before sitting down at the table with my laptop to get to work.

Meticulous records weren’t optional in a business like mine. I had files on each man I approached, consisting of what his partner told me about him, links and screenshots from all his social media accounts, and the strategy I intended to use with him to see if he would be open to cheating. Once I made contact, I took screenshots of every single message before anything could be deleted, and recorded every phone call or video chat. My approach might seem improvisational, but a lot of work went into it before I ever made contact with the men in the first place, and even more effort went into documenting everything afterwards.

That morning, I updated the file on the musician from the night before, closing it out by updating my master spreadsheet with the outcome. Fail appeared in bright red letters, just one of many in a sea of red that made the few green Pass entries look out of place .

With that done, I took a look through the DMs on my bait profile, the one I used to message the men I tested. Nothing new had come in there since the night before, so I moved to the messages on my other profile, the one where women could request my services. There, the inbox had several new messages, as it always did.

With my cup of coffee in hand, I started going through them. By that point, I knew what to expect, with common phrases appearing over and over again.

I never thought I would be in this situation.

He says I’m being insecure, but I feel like something’s not right.

I’m probably being paranoid, but…

Excuses, gaslighting, and outright lying were frustratingly commonplace, and usually, when I went to the man’s profile, more red flags appeared.

Shirtless pictures.

Photos of him with a car, or a bike, or something else meant to show off his wealth.

And most importantly: no pictures of the woman who contacted me in the first place.

Exceptions existed, but those staples were my bread and butter, and four of the five new messages that morning fit into that category.

The fifth one, however, looked a little different. After glancing at the man’s profile, I went back to the initial message from his partner, a woman named Celine, and read it again, more carefully the second time.

You probably hear this all the time, but I’m getting a bad feeling about my husband. He’s a travel agent and he often goes on ‘scouting trips’ to check out hotels and cities to recommend to clients. During those trips, he has his phone off a lot. When he finally replies to me, he always says he had a poor signal or some other excuse. At home, his phone buzzes with notifications all the time but I can never see who’s messaging him. He never leaves it unattended. When I ask him, he says it’s about work. He wants us to start a family, but I don’t want to have a kid with someone who might be cheating on me. Can you help me find out for sure?

A lot of the hallmarks of cheating jumped out at me: the out-of-town trips, the unavailability, and hiding incoming messages certainly didn’t sound good.

His social media accounts, however, looked clean. Along with a lot of travel pictures, which made sense given his job, I spotted his wife several times. They made a gorgeous couple, both tanned with long limbs, her with blonde-streaked hair and him with a dark, short cut, her eyes brown and his a vibrant blue. If they did have kids, those kids would be stunning. Romantic pictures of the two of them dotted his feeds, and his relationship status clearly stated ‘married’.

Just because he didn’t pretend to be single didn’t mean he wouldn’t cheat, though. He might have other accounts under other names, or he might simply be meeting up with women who weren’t interested in anything long-term and didn’t care about the literal or metaphorical ring on his finger.

They lived in San Francisco, not far away at all, which always made the approach a little easier. When I had to message men in the Midwest, for example, I had to be more creative about where I might know them from. With someone close to me on the west coast, I could spin it a lot of different ways.

With my initial checks out of the way, I sent a reply to the woman.

Hi Celine, I’m sorry to hear there might be trouble in your marriage, but that’s what I’m here for. Here’s a link to the packages I offer. If you’re interested, choose the one that suits you best and send me any additional details you think might help me to make a good impression on him when I get in touch.

Her response came back quickly, while I worked through some of the profiles for the other messages.

I don’t see any packages where you meet him in person. Is that an option?

Just as quickly, I shot back a response.

No, I don’t do in-person meetings for my own safety. Most women agree that if their man offers to meet me, it means he would cheat with me too.

Could you make an exception in this case? I really need to know if he’d go through with it.

I’m sorry, but no. That’s a hard limit for me. If it’s necessary for you, then you’ll need to find someone else.

Her response took a bit longer that time, but eventually, my phone buzzed again.

I’ve heard you’re the best, so I guess I’ll have to trust you.

That managed to be both flattering and a bit insulting at the same time, but almost immediately afterwards, I got the confirmation that her payment had gone through.

The job had officially begun.

“Alright, Gabriel Carter,” I muttered as I returned to his profile to start building my file on him. “Let’s see what kind of woman would tempt you.”

~Gabriel~

I gave my inbox one last glance at the end of the work day, making sure everything could wait for the morning before I shut my computer down. Despite having travel insurance, customers often got in touch with me directly if they encountered any problems during the trips I arranged for them, and although it added a bit of stress to my day, I didn’t mind too much. My job was to make sure they had the best experience possible, and if I could do anything to help make that happen, I would.

As I stood up to grab my bag, my phone buzzed on my desk. Immediately, my heart beat a little faster, hope rising in my chest. Maybe Celine messaged me? She used to send me a text at the end of every day to see when I’d be home and say she’d missed me, but gradually, she stopped doing it. I couldn’t even say for sure when the last time had been, and given the growing distance between us, I’d welcome that kind of small gesture to let me know she’d been thinking of me.

That hope only lasted as long as it took to pick up my phone, when I immediately saw the message didn’t come from her. Someone I didn’t know had messaged me, through my Instagram DMs, with the username ‘sunnycali’.

Hey, I’m sorry to reach out randomly, but I came across your Uzbekistan pictures. They’re stunning! Could I ask you a couple of questions?

A little flush of pride swelled inside me. They were stunning photos, but I didn’t have a very big following. Usually, a handful of my friends and family or former clients liked my travel pictures and that would be all. Though I didn’t know why they’d reached a stranger, it made me feel good to know they had.

Not bothering to look at the person’s profile before answering, I sent back a quick response.

Ask away.

Out loud, I said goodnight to the others in the office and headed out onto the street to catch the bus home. With only one car, I normally took public transit so that Celine could have the car if she needed it during the day.

I’ll start with the big one first: I’ve been looking at doing a trip there, but I’m a woman travelling alone. How safe is it?

That question didn’t have an easy answer, but I tried my best anyway.

Well, I’m not a woman, so my experience won’t really be comparable, but the locals I spoke to assured me that it’s generally very safe. As long as you dress respectfully to the local culture and take reasonable precautions, it should be as safe as anywhere else.

She responded to my message with a laugh emoji before replying.

I figured that you weren’t a woman after I saw the picture of you on the beach in Turkey. Nice abs, by the way.

A wink emoji followed that statement, and I winced as I stepped onto the bus that stopped in front of me. Hopefully, this woman hadn’t gotten the wrong idea about me. While I would be happy to chat about travel, it didn’t extend any further than that.

It seemed best to nip any flirtation in the bud.

I’m married, just so we’re clear.

Good for you? I just wanted to pay you a compliment.

Maybe I assumed too much? It had been a while since I flirted with anyone. I started to type out an apology, but she responded again before I could.

I love a good beach pic.

A second later, a picture appeared in my messages of an absolutely gorgeous woman in a tiny bikini on a sun-kissed beach. Was that actually her? More curious than anything, I clicked onto her profile for the first time and saw that all the other photos matched the woman in the picture. A truly beautiful woman, and I’d be flattered by her compliment if I weren’t already spoken for.

Cancun?

She laugh-reacted again.

You’ve got a good eye.

That still felt a little too flirty for me, even without any accompanying emoji, so I brought us back to her initial question.

Well, I wouldn’t dress like that in Uzbekistan, but if you’re genuinely interested, I can do a bit more research for you. I’m actually a travel agent.

Are you sure? I don’t want to make work for you if I don’t end up booking anything.

The constant start and stop of the bus in the city traffic slowed down my typing a little, but I still managed to fire off a response without any major typos.

It would be good information for me to know. I’ll get back to you in a day or two, and you can ask me any other questions you have then.

Well, thanks. You’re very kind. Your wife is a lucky woman.

I’m the lucky one.

With that, I closed the chat, still feeling uncertain about whether or not she’d actually been hitting on me. It kind of felt that way, and as I slid my phone back into my pocket, I smiled. Celine would probably get a kick of that idea, so I would have to tell her about it over dinner. It would be nice to make her laugh again .

When I got to our house, though, the driveway sat empty, our car nowhere to be seen. Inside, I couldn’t find anything to indicate where my wife had gone, so I sent her a text.

I’m home. Do you want me to start supper?

Lately, it seemed to put her on edge if I asked for her location directly, so I tried to ask in a more roundabout way when she would be home.

Lately, a lot of things seemed to put her on edge.

I’m over at Allie’s and I’ll eat here. Have whatever you like.

So much for telling her about my day. A twinge of annoyance plucked at my brain, but I did my best not to let it show.

Alright. Say hi to your sister for me. I love you.

I will.

I waited a few moments for any further reply, but none came.

With nothing else I needed to do, I made myself a sandwich and sat down in the living room to start looking at the online forums I used for travel questions for information about safety for independent women travellers in the former Soviet republics known as the ‘Stans’.

It seemed a bit strange that someone as beautiful as the woman who messaged me would be travelling on her own, but maybe she simply preferred it. After all, Celine didn’t like travelling with me. All the minor inconveniences made her irritable and we ended up at each other’s throats. Maybe this woman’s partner reacted the same, or maybe she didn’t have one.

It really wasn’t any of my business.

With a shake of my head, I got back on track, and soon, I had information from a few sources I trusted. I drafted my reply in my phone’s notes, figuring I would wait until the next day to send it to her since I’d told her it would take me a day and something else might occur to me by the morning .

By the time I finished, it had passed eight o’clock, and Celine walked through the door twenty minutes later.

“How’s Allie?” I asked as she walked into the kitchen, not bothering to stop and give me a kiss like she used to.

“So busy. Brad’s away for work all week and she’s struggling with the baby. I might stay overnight there tomorrow.”

“Does she want to come and stay here?” I offered, not wanting to invite myself to Allie’s house but also not really pleased about the prospect of another night away from Celine. We hadn’t had a proper conversation in weeks. Sex, when it happened, felt obligatory rather than desired.

It felt like she’d started slipping away from me and I had no idea why. Somehow, I had to find a way to turn it around.

“All the baby’s stuff is there,” she answered me from the kitchen, plates clattering as she fixed herself something to eat. She must not have had a chance to eat at Allie’s after all. “It’d be too much work to pack it all up and bring it over. It’s just one night.”

That time, it would only be one night, but all those ‘one nights’ added up to a lot. Even so, I kept my mouth shut, knowing that any perceived criticism would only make Celine defensive. With nothing else to say, I changed the subject. “Hey, guess what. I got a really random message today.”

“I’m going to go have a bath,” she cut me off, stepping into the living room at last to give me a quick peck. An unfamiliar scent clung to her clothes, which must have come from something at Allie’s house. “You can tell me about it later, okay?”

Without giving me a chance to respond, she walked out of the room with her bowl of food. I flipped on the TV in an attempt to distract myself, and by the time the show finished and I headed to bed, Celine had already fallen fast asleep.