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It was all speculation, though. There wasn’t any hard information. Which, of course, made people speculate even more.
The bartender offered me a drink, so I accepted a Coke. It was delivered in a glass etched with the name Bellerophon. When I Googled the ship name, I was sent to a Wikipedia article about Bellerophon, a Greek demi-god famous for slaying monsters like the chimera.
I laughed out loud at that. Such a cocky thing to name your yacht after. All billionaires saw themselves as monster-slaying gods.
Knowing that I probably had a dozen more texts waiting for me when I got cell service, I decided to use the computer’s built-in Google phone to call my mom.
“Oh thank God,” she said breathlessly. “I’ve been texting and calling you for hours.”
“It’s been, like, half an hour since I texted you,” I replied. “You always exaggerate.”
“You’ve potentially been kidnapped, and yet I’m the one exaggerating? You never call. You always text. That’s how I know something’s wrong.”
“Everything is fine, Mom. That’s why I called you: so you could hear my voice. This is an amazing opportunity, mom. I might be the surrogate for a man who—”
“A man?” Mom interrupted. “Not a couple?”
“You’re twisting my words around.”
“Who is it? What opportunity are they offering? Is it better than a normal surrogate contract?”
I started to answer, then remembered the NDA. “That’s the thing, Mom. I can’t really tell you.”
“It’s so bad you can’t even tell your poor mother?”
“I signed an NDA,” I replied. “I’ll explain more when I can, I promise. But I wanted to call to let you know not to worry. You don’t have to call the police.”
There was a pregnant silence on the line.
“Maybe I should reach out to that Pawtucket detective your father plays poker with…”
“Do not do that,” I quickly said. “I have to go. But trust me: this is a good thing.”
When I hung up, I realized that I wasn’t just saying whatever I needed to calm my mom down. This was a good thing. It was an amazing opportunity. Once I pushed aside my emotions and thought about it objectively, I knew this was the chance of a lifetime. For the money being offered, it would be stupid not to at least sign the contract to become a traditional surrogate for Pierce Benning.
And the other offer…
For a brief moment, I let myself consider it. Really consider it, along with all the spicy details. It was scandalous. The kind of thing I never would have imagined being offered, let alone accept. In a way, that made the whole situation kind of appealing, like a forbidden fantasy that I never really expected to happen.
But it ultimately didn’t matter. There was no way I was going to choose the second contract. I wasn’t a prostitute. I barely knew this man, aside from a few minutes of Googling. And even if I wanted to make that deal with him, the contract probably wasn’t legally enforceable.
My lawyer called the line on the laptop. “This is Melinda.”
“The contracts are legitimate,” she said, sounding surprised. “They’re actually more favorable to you than to Mr. Benning. I don’t see a way for this to bite you in the ass.”
“Really?” I replied. “Both of them are legitimate, even the… more complicated contract?”
“You mean the one paying you for sex?” she said bluntly. “If he was requiring you to sleep with him, there would be a whole slew of problems. But it’s all voluntary.”
“So I could agree to that contract, hold out for six months, and then collect the money,” I said.
“I mean, yeah, you could. But there are a lot of bonus incentives if you do get pregnant, and even more if the baby is carried to term. By the end of this, you’ll be a rich woman.”
“You’re acting like this is a no-brainer.”
“It kind of is.” My lawyer chuckled. “Listen, I’m not the type of person who is going to tell you what to do. But this isn’t some wrinkly old octogenarian. We’re talking about Pierce Benning.”
“So you’d heard about him before I sent you the contract?”
