Historias cortas de Mistress Imagination y novelas ambientadas en Cheating

To support Gavin Cooper’s work, I waited in our first-floor home with our son, who was burning with a high fever, while the hurricane raged outside. Yet as the head of the local emergency response team, he gave the last remaining life ring to his childhood sweetheart, Wendy Harper, on the tenth floor. When I voiced my dissatisfaction, he berated me over the phone. “Luna, you’re my wife. I can’t abuse my position for personal gain. I have to set an example. “But Wendy is different. She’s a widow raising a young daughter, so I have a responsibility to make sure they’re protected.” Once again, his argument about putting the greater good first won me over. That was until the floodwaters swallowed the first floor, and I hurriedly called the command center while holding my barely breathing son in my arms. The person on the other end apologized before informing me, “Ma’am, Mr. Cooper registered Miss Harper and her daughter as the first people to be evacuated. You and your son were placed in the final group.” As I watched my son slowly stop breathing, my heart turned to ash. “System, I accept your recommendation to leave this world with my son.” “Gavin, my son and I will never need you to save us again.”

I had been able to see the labels above people's heads ever since I was little. When I was three, my grandpa held a family dinner at his house. Dad showed up with his secretary, Vivian Clarke. The moment she walked through the door, she went straight to Mom's seat. She rubbed her lower back and smiled sweetly. "Mrs. Lincoln, I hope you don't mind. Mr. Lincoln and I have been working on a project all day, and we're exhausted." I looked around the room. Above Eric's head was a glaring label. "Cheater." Above Mom's head was a dull gray label. "Loser." And above Vivian's head was a brightly shining label. "Ultimate gold digger." I immediately tugged on Eric's sleeve and asked loudly, "Dad, what do ‘cheater’ and ‘gold digger’ mean?"

Everyone was having a blast on the yacht for Valentine’s Day when my boyfriend, Ethan Hayes, asked me to go tell his uncle I fancied him. “Go on, tell him. You’re a lucky girl if he actually takes a liking to you! Next time we meet, I might even have to call you auntie!” Vivian Lawrence, his childhood sweetheart, was by my boyfriend’s side, smiling triumphantly. Just a few minutes ago, they had shared a glass of cocktail. I clutched the watch in my pocket—bought with two months of my savings to make peace—my heart riddled with holes. Suddenly, a line of live comment lit up before my eyes: “I’m sick of this jerk. Girl, go for the uncle. He’s the real big shot. He’s fancied you for a long time, even gave up everything abroad to come back to you!” Looking at the sneering Ethan, I took a deep breath, pulled up my skirt, revealing my long, straight legs. “Fine, I’ll give it a try! “If he returns my affection, you’ll have to call me your aunt soon.”

Being fair and treating everyone equally has always mattered most to Chase Russell. That's why he has a specialized chip implanted in my uterus. Whenever his childhood sweetheart, Joanna Reynolds, suffers from morning sickness or any other discomfort during her pregnancy, every bit of her pain is transferred to me. "Didn't you always dream of experiencing what it's like to be a mother? I'm making that dream come true for you." The day Joanna goes into labor, the pain hits me so hard that I pass out in the hospital corridor. But Chase is in the delivery room, gently comforting her. "How are you feeling? It doesn't hurt at all, does it?" Later, he tells me he wants to hold a wedding with Joanna, so she and their child can have a proper place in the family. "Although Joanna will be the one marrying me, you'll still be the one whose name is on the marriage certificate," he says. "I told you… I've always treated you both equally." I say nothing. I simply take off the wedding ring he gave me and return it to him. When the wedding march begins to play, I have already boarded a one-way flight to a faraway place.

My CEO girlfriend promised to marry me if only I handed over my billion-dollar-worth project to her first love. I agreed without hesitation. Yet on the day we were supposed to make things official, she never showed up. I called her 99 times, but she didn't pick up once. Just when I was about to give up, I saw a post from her first love on social media, featuring a picture of them holding their newly issued marriage license. [From school uniforms to wedding vows. A love that never changes.] I quietly liked the post without making a scene. Moments later, my long-lost girlfriend finally called back. "Cyrus got into a car accident trying to save me, and he lost his memory. The doctors say he needs emotional stimulation to recover. Don't worry, though. Once he gets better, we'll get married. You're the one I love most." What she didn't know was that there would be no future for us. The moment she stood me up at City Hall, the system I'd bound myself to declared my mission a failure. I had seven days left. After that, I would be completely erased from existence.

Three years into the apocalypse, my girlfriend, a captain of the Spark Sanctuary, kept me stuck living in the outer quarantine belt for 1,095 days. Every time I dragged my battered body to her with an entry pass in hand, she would put on a conflicted expression. "Shane, you're my boyfriend, so I have to avoid showing favoritism. These spots need to go to the families of fallen soldiers. Just wait a little longer. You don't have special abilities, so you're just regular muscle inside." I bought her excuses completely, turning right back around to risk my life fighting through swarms of infected. It wasn't until the day I accumulated my ninth entry pass, crawling back to find her while burning up with a 104-degree fever, that I caught her handing the last spot to her ex-boyfriend. She shielded him. "Logan's healing power is humanity's greatest hope. I have to look at the big picture." She snatched the blood-stained entry pass from my hand and tossed it into the trash can. In that instant, it all clicked. Her supposed "difficulties" and "big picture" were nothing more than convenient excuses to sacrifice me whenever it suited her.

On Christmas Eve, my wife, Abigail Balmer, publicly announced her relationship with her forty-ninth boy toy. [My forever love, @Dwayne Porter.] [My forever love, @Abigail Balmer.] Then she turned to comfort me. "He just lost a dare game, that's all. Don't take it to heart." Everyone mocked me as the man who'd married into money, too spineless to fight back. But I never made a scene. What they didn't know was that I'd struck a deal with the System. Every time Abigail was unfaithful, one year of her lifespan would transfer to me. By my count, of the eighty years she should have lived, she now had exactly one left. All I had to do was survive until the New Year, and she'd meet her natural end. And I would walk away with our three children and inherit the Balmer family's trillion-dollar fortune.