2. Chapter Two
~Jennifer~
“ Why do men think that’s attractive?” I groaned out loud as I opened my DMs to find yet another dick pic to add to my substantial collection. The shot, taken in a reclining position on some kind of chair, featured the man’s hand wrapped around his hard cock, his jeans and white briefs pulled down just enough to get the shot, and the caption ‘thinking of you’ with a devil emoji. It came from one of the men I’d just started messaging that morning. Within twenty messages, he decided that sending me a picture of his rather unimpressive junk mattered more than his two-year relationship.
With a sigh, I took a screenshot and sent it to the woman who’d hired me to test him.
Recognize this?
Her reply only took a few seconds.
I’m going to twist that dick off him with my bare hands!
Once she confirmed she had all she needed, I blocked the guy, updated his file with the screenshots and the woman’s replies, and completed another row on my master spreadsheet.
On a per-hour rate, that case made me a fair bit of money, but they weren’t all that easy.
Like Gabriel Carter, for instance.
After our DM conversation that afternoon, I sent the initial screenshots to Celine.
Looks like a pass to me.
Not only did he skip right over all the opportunities I gave him to flirt, he didn’t make a single comment on the photo I sent. He quickly pointed out his married status and he called himself lucky to have his wife. Those kinds of sweet, heartwarming comments were few and far between in my day-to-day work.
However, when Celine’s response came in later that evening, she didn’t sound satisfied.
He never mentioned the messages to me and I gave him plenty of opportunities. It feels suspicious.
Although I didn’t necessarily agree, she knew him better than I did.
Alright, I’ll try again when he gets back to me. Hang tight.
No late-night texts came in that night, giving me a full night of uninterrupted sleep for a nice change. In the morning, I went for a jog through my neighbourhood to clear my head.
It only partially worked, though; Gabriel Carter kept popping up in my thoughts.
Some men looked like passes at first, saying all the right things because they knew their partner could access their phone. Eventually, they’d offer to connect with me on a different platform instead, one that didn’t keep permanent records, and at that point, their tune changed dramatically. Maybe Gabriel would be the same, but Celine told me that he never let her see his phone in the first place, so why go to the trouble?
Over the year and a half that I’d been doing the tests, I’d developed a bit of a sixth sense as to how things would go right from the first interaction, and everything in my gut said Gabriel would be a pass. What convinced his wife that he wouldn’t be? Something felt off, but I couldn’t put my finger on anything concrete, and in the end, I could only do the job I’d been hired to do .
Back at home after a shower and breakfast, I started my work day, and several new messages were waiting for me, including some from Gabriel. After thinking about him earlier, I went to those ones first.
Good morning. These are some first-hand accounts I found from other female travellers. I’ve removed names and identifying information, but they’re all legit, I promise.
Following that were three texts of copy-and-pasted details from women who had been to Uzbekistan, and in the last text, Gabriel added a few more words of his own.
If you decide you’re interested, I’d be happy to help you plan out a trip. Absolutely no pressure to book it through me. I love helping people discover someplace a little out of the ordinary. Have a great day.
Not a single word sounded flirtatious. He didn’t even seem to want to sell me anything. That gut feeling that told me Celine had nothing to worry about got even stronger.
However, since she said she wanted me to pursue it, I responded.
Wow. This is so nice of you, thank you. And yes, absolutely, I’d love to chat with you about potential itineraries. Where are you based? Maybe I can come into your office?
I knew exactly where he worked, and as I already told Celine, I wouldn’t meet him in person. By suggesting I would, though, it would make him more willing to accept my downgraded alternate offer instead. It almost always worked.
I’m in San Francisco. I’m guessing from your username that you’re in California too?
Pasadena.
If he checked my profile, he’d figure that out easily enough. The fact that he didn’t already know suggested he hadn’t spent much time browsing through my pictures. Or pretended not to have.
SF is a little too far for me, unfortunately. Maybe we could video chat instead? I want to see which places make your eyes light up.
He could have taken that slightly flirty comment and ran with it, but he didn’t, sticking to business instead.
Everything I recommend will be good, but sure, we can do video. I have time tomorrow afternoon if that works for you?
I dropped a pleading-eyes emoji with my next message.
Nothing for today? You’ve got me all excited.
Three quarters of the men I messaged would have jumped on that innuendo, but Gabriel ignored it entirely.
I could squeeze in some time over lunch, if you don’t mind seeing me eat.
Sounds perfect.
I’ll try to call around 12:30. Speak to you then.
That gave me a couple of hours, in between working on my other clients, to figure out how to tempt him, but I already had a feeling it would be easier said than done.
~Gabriel~
By the time I glanced at the clock after my busy morning, I only had ten minutes left until my scheduled video chat with the stranger from Instagram. Luckily, I had a packed lunch that only took a minute to grab from the fridge. Celine had already left the house for her morning jog by the time I got up, so I ate breakfast alone. Though the potential new client and I wouldn’t be in the same room, at least I wouldn’t have to have lunch alone too.
Taking my laptop into the meeting room, I pulled up my files on Uzbekistan and placed the call at 12:30 precisely.
“Very punctual. I like that.” The warm, teasing voice reached me before her video switched on, but a second later, the screen flickered to life and one of the most stunning women I’d ever seen smiled back at me.
The bikini picture honestly hadn’t done her justice. Posed and practiced, it seemed slightly artificial despite being beautiful. The woman I saw on the screen, however, looked far more natural and inviting. Honey-coloured hair hung in soft waves over her shoulders, her slightly rounded cheeks were a sweet shade of pink that matched her full, glistening lips, and light hazel eyes stared straight into the camera, confident but somehow sweet.
For a moment, I almost forgot what she just said, but it came back to me a second later: she appreciated that I kept to schedule. “I’m not looking to waste your time,” I assured her. “I’m Gabe, by the way.”
“Jen. Thanks for talking to me, Gabe. It’s always a bit of a crap shoot when you approach someone online. You never know who’s going to be a creep.”
I could only imagine the kind of comments she got. “Well, I’m sure you have way more people approaching you than I do, but let’s get down to business. Tell me what made you want to go to Uzbekistan.”
I took a bite of my sandwich as I finished speaking, hoping she would talk long enough that I could swallow before needing to say anything else.
A bright smile flashed across her face, her eyes never moving from me. “To be honest, there aren’t many places I don’t want to go. The world is an amazing place and I want to experience as much of it as I can. Don’t you agree?”
“It’s kind of my job to agree,” I pointed out with my hand over my mouth, and the speakers of my laptop vibrated with her laugh. I never really knew what sultry meant before, but if I had to choose one word to describe her laugh, that would be it: deep and rich and warm. Sultry. “But yes, I absolutely agree. You can learn an awful lot by travelling, both about the places you go and about yourself too. Travel is amazing, you won’t get any argument from me there. But why Uzbekistan in particular?”
She took a deep breath, her chest rising just enough to give me a glimpse of her cleavage at the bottom of the screen. Even though I didn’t intentionally look, her low-cut shirt made it hard to miss. “I’ve always found the Silk Road history fascinating, along with the architecture. As you probably already guessed, I’m a sucker for the Instagram-ready backgrounds.”
Her self-deprecating laugh suggested she didn’t take herself too seriously, even though a lot of people probably followed her just to see her looking pretty in pretty places.
“I’m most interested in visiting the cities, like Tashkent and Samarkand,” she added. “They’re probably easiest to get around.”
“Those are both great destinations, and I would add Bukhara or Khiva to that list too. Both, if you can, depending on how much time you have. Would you travel by train?”
“Probably, if you think it’s safe? How did you go between cities?”
“I took the train and it felt safe to me, but if you want to do an overnight one, I would pay the extra to get a private room.”
We spoke for almost twenty minutes without a pause while I polished off my lunch. It didn’t feel anywhere near that long; only when I glanced down at my phone did I realize exactly how much time had passed. “I’m sorry to cut this short, but I’ve got a client coming in just a few minutes and I need to make sure I’m ready for them. ”
“Where are they going?” Jen asked. Her curiosity seemed genuine. Not once in the whole conversation had she glanced away or looked uninterested.
“Spain. A little less exotic, but still exciting.”
Her warm laugh filled the room again. “I have a feeling you could make anything sound exciting. Do you ever provide companion travel services for your clients?”
The idea of travelling with the woman in front of me, who seemed to get just as much joy out of exploring and experiencing things as I did, appealed to me far more than it should have, especially when she ran her tongue over her lips to wet them. She didn’t mean for that to look as seductive as it did, I felt sure. “No, I only make the arrangements from here, but I’m always available by phone if anything goes wrong and they need some help.”
“So, your wife is the only lucky woman who gets to travel with you?”
For a second time, she called Celine lucky, and something about the way she said it made it feel like we were in danger of slipping into more flirty territory. That, combined with the fact that my client would be there any minute, led me to wrap the conversation up. “I really do need to run, but you know how to reach me if you have more questions.”
“Could we talk again another time?” she asked. “You said you had some time tomorrow? Or if you don’t mind, we could talk outside of work hours? It would be easier for me, actually.”
As much as I would like to continue our conversation, the idea also made me slightly uneasy. Maybe if I spoke to Celine about it first, it would feel more above-board. “I’ll check my schedule and get back to you. Have a good day, Jen.”
“You too, Gabe. Thank you for your time.” She blew me a kiss just before signing off, and I exhaled slowly, trying to push down the weird guilt I felt. If I had met a woman like her before Celine, I would have jumped at the chance to spend more time with her, but thinking that way didn’t do me any good. I loved my wife, and if I didn’t feel as connected to her as I once had, the responsibility came down to me to fix it.
Maybe that night would be a good time to start.
~Jennifer~
My younger sister let herself into my house as she always did, like a hurricane blowing in, walking straight into my kitchen to peer over my shoulder at the pot on the stove. “What are we having?”
Since I’d been expecting her, I didn’t even look up. “Chicken cacciatore.”
“Mom’s recipe?” she asked, dipping a finger into the pot before I could swat her hand away.
“Naturally. Go make yourself useful and set the table.”
“Damn, that’s good. Why does yours always taste better than mine?” she groaned, licking her finger and eyeing the pot again.
“Because I actually follow the recipe. And if you put that finger back in my sauce, I’ll throw the whole thing out and you can order pizza from down the street instead.”
With a shudder, Eda backed off, going to wash her hands before grabbing the dishes from my cupboards. “How is that place still open? The pizza is terrible.”
“I’m convinced it’s a front for money laundering or something. No one is ever there but they’re still in business.”
No matter how long it had been since my sister and I saw each other, we always jumped right back into conversation as if there hadn’t been any break at all. She lived down in Los Angeles, pursuing her dream of being a set designer for the movies, close enough to see each other regularly but just far enough away that we had to make an effort. At least twice a month, we’d have supper together, gossiping about her life and mine, usually at my house since she still shared an apartment with two roommates. Our parents had retired up in Washington, so aside from major holidays, she was the only family I saw regularly.
Unlike my parents, Eda also knew all about my loyalty test business and she loved to hear the details of my latest jobs. That week, she dove straight in as we sat down with the food and the wine. “So, how many new dicks have you seen this week?”
I grabbed one of the rolls I’d warmed in the oven as I dug into my food. “Only three. It’s been a slow week.”
“Business slowing down, or the guys are being less gross?”
“Definitely no slow-down in business,” I assured her. “And still plenty of fails too. They’re just doing it in other ways rather than literally exposing themselves.”
“God, men are such pigs,” my perpetually-single sister declared, taking a swig of her wine. “Matt excluded, of course.”
“Of course.” She always made that exception. Even four years after my fiancé died, she still wouldn’t group him in with the rest of the gender. He’d been the big brother she never had, and she missed him almost as much as I did. “I might actually be working on a pass, though. It’s still ongoing, but it’s looking good.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Ooh, so they do exist?”
“They do, I promise. But this one is a bit weird.”
I left it there as I took another bite of my supper, trying to decide how to explain the situation with Gabriel. After my call with him earlier, during which I got so caught up in our conversation that I actually forgot to try to flirt with him until the very end, I sent another message to his wife.
We spoke for twenty minutes and he made no attempt to hit on me. Didn’t comment on my appearance. When I offered to speak with him outside of work, it seemed to make him uncomfortable. I’m not saying it’s impossible that he’s cheating, but he doesn’t seem to be interested in doing it with me.
Occasionally, the men I tested were in a ‘committed affair’, as I put it. They cheated, yes, but only with one person. They weren’t just looking for any woman, so in those cases, my tests weren’t of much use.
Or maybe he wasn’t cheating at all. That felt a lot more likely to me.
Celine thought otherwise.
He must be suspicious. I’ll give him some space so he has time to talk to you without me knowing. Keep trying.
At some point, I would run out of excuses to keep contacting him, but she’d chosen one of my most expensive packages, so I couldn’t stop the job without a good reason to. As much as I trusted my gut that he would still turn out to be a pass, I would have to try again.
With Eda’s prompting, I told her a bit about my interactions with Gabriel. “A hot travel agent? Sounds perfect for you,” she teased me, and her eyes widened as I glanced down at my plate for a second. “Oh my God, you’re blushing! You like him, don’t you?”
“He’s married.”
“Maybe not for long,” she snorted.
“Eda! I don’t date cheaters, especially not ones that I helped to catch.”
She let it go and we moved on to talking about her life instead of mine. She told me all about designing her current set and the latest dating exploits of all the women in her apartment, but apparently, Gabriel lingered in her mind the same way he’d been hanging around mine, because she asked me about him again before she left that evening. “What’s the name of this travel-agent guy?”
“You know I can’t share that with you.” My clients paid for discretion as part of my services.
“I have good friends who work in the theatre scene in San Francisco. They might know him or his wife,” she insisted. “You never know. It’s a small world. I promise I won’t say why I’m asking, but it might be helpful to know what kind of reputation they both have. Please let me help. Your job has provided me with so many hours of entertainment, it’s the least I could do.”
If it were any other client, I would have said no, but I couldn’t entirely get rid of that feeling that something important to this case sat just out of my reach. Though I still didn’t feel great about it, I gave in. “Alright, but listen: under no circumstances are you to mention me or the fact that he might be cheating. Are we clear?”
“I get it,” she promised me, crossing her fingers over her heart just like she’d done since we were kids. “It’ll be completely anonymous. Maybe one of my friends is cheating with him!”
She looked so delighted at that prospect that I had to laugh, which set her off too. Her familiar warm embrace before she left made me feel even lighter.
“Maybe you should book yourself a trip with this travel agent before you expose him,” she added as she headed out the door. “You’re supposed to be travelling, remember? It’s what Matt wanted.”
“I know.” Those had been his instructions, but I couldn’t imagine doing it without him. “Maybe I will.”
She knew as well as I did that I didn’t mean it, but she let that one go too, blowing me a kiss before closing the door behind her. The silence that lingered after her departure, the calm after the storm, always felt more profound than before, and in those moments, I missed Matt most of all.
Before I could get too upset, though, my phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out, grateful for the distraction.
To my surprise, the message came from Gabe.