by Hazel Parker
“Well, technically, we haven’t signed a contract yet, but it is…well, kind of personal? I—”
“You hired him to father you a child, didn’t you?”
Guess we’re getting right to the main point of it all!
I laughed at how absurd it sounded to hear Kelly say it. But then, a different emotion came to mind.
Surprise at Kelly’s disappointment?
It was the kind of tone we’d taken with each other when we’d gone back to crappy relationships or stayed in one in our youth. A tone of honest disappointment, one we could take with each other. But that was when she hadn’t gotten out of her marriage and I hadn’t yet shed Sean; why would she have this sound about Burke?
“Yeah, I did,” I said, sounding like a kid confessing in church.
“Well, I know you a kid, but erm…do you really want it to be Burke as the daddy?”
I was confused. I thought this would have been good news for her. Was there something about Burke that I had somehow overlooked? Was there something about me that I’d failed to account for that would make this disastrous?
“Yes?”
Kelly sighed.
“One, this is weird because I’m connected to Burke through Liam, so it’s like I’m going to be an aunt or something.”
I kind of thought that was a good thing? I didn’t want to get stupid corny, but that seemed like a delight to be had. The two of us following parallel tracks in our parenting lives. The only real difference being that she had a husband and I did not.
“Two, you know these guys’ lifestyles. Liam has settled down and moved here, but he’s prone to just leaving without warning. It’s his line of work. I accept it, but it’s stressful as hell when your man just gets up in the middle of the night without warning. I joke that I’d never know if he was dead, but there’s some morbid reality to that truth, Emily. And from what I know of Burke, he’s even colder than Liam is. Are you sure that this is really that smart?”
Are you sure…?
Those words, more than anything else, stung. They stung at the assumption that I had made a coherent, intelligent, and logical decision. And they stung in that there was an element of truth to it.
“I mean, it’s not like I would call this situation ideal,” I said. “I understand the best thing to do is to take my time with a great man with a stable, safe job and have a kid with him. But this is a reversal in how I feel; you know that. It sucks it took so long to realize it, but…”
“Look, I support you no matter what you do, I was just taken off guard.”
Kelly might have said it as a throwaway, but it was anything but to me. Those were words I desperately needed to hear from her, if only for the reassurance.
“And I’m definitely excited at the prospect of another one of my friends getting the joys of being a mother. I know I joke about a lack of sleep, but it really is wonderful. I just want to make sure that you think this through, Em. Because I promise you that however much joy you think there’ll be, there’s an equal, if not greater, amount of stress.”
“I know, I know.”
I didn’t. Not really. Seeing Charlotte almost get abducted was painful for me. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must have felt like for Kelly. If I was committing to this, to being a mother at least, that might be the kind of stress I’d have to encounter or at least imagine.
“My opinion is moot at the end of the day,” Kelly said. “I just, as your friend, want to make sure that you are making the sound, smart choice with your future as you charge ahead.”
“I think I am,” I said, words that didn’t exactly inspire confidence.
If Kelly thought something was off and worth examining, then it was worth examining. Maybe I needed to approach this from another angle. Maybe instead of IVF, I needed…
Hmm. Maybe I needed to do it the old-fashioned way and take my chances.
“I am,” I repeated, this time with less hedging. “And the process won’t be started for a bit anyway, so I got time to change my mind.”
“I got you. Just make sure you don’t rush into anything.”
The conversation thankfully drifted to lighter topics after that. Kelly talked about coming to Miami for another vacation but tried to get me to commit to coming to Colorado for one first. Going back to Colorado—or at least Breckenridge—was a bit of a tough ask. It wasn’t easy to want to return their after everything that went down.
We chatted a bit longer before Charlotte started crying in the background. I let Kelly go, wondering what it would be like to have my own daughter. I was left with the silence of my apartment, a feeling that I’d gotten a temporary reprieve from with the phone call to Kelly.
Kelly was right, he hadn’t even stuck around to make sure we were OK after killing Sean. Tenderness and empathy were probably not strong points of his, or at least not obviously strong points of his. But damnit, I was paying the man five million dollars and giving him a car that had made him break character.
I grabbed my phone and almost called him, but I knew full well he wouldn’t pick up. I instead texted him.
“Thanks for everything. Let me know if you want to meet up to discuss things further.”
I spent an embarrassing amount of time crafting that text for a woman in her late thirties.
Unfortunately, as the day progressed, Burke never responded. Either he sucked at texting, he didn’t want anything to do with me, or he’d somehow gotten too busy. I didn’t bother to think too long on it, as much as I could, anyway.
Chapter 8: Burke
I’d dealt with some serious shit in my life.
I’d found myself deep in jungles with Bulldog Ants, mosquitoes, and God knows what other monsters of the deep crawling up on me. I’d been at sea in the middle of brutal storms that made me question if I would live another day. I’d been in lands so dangerous, crawling with criminals and warlords, that merely exposing my face could have gotten me shot on the spot.
But none of them quite flustered me like the moment that I walked into the clinic.
First of all, I immediately wondered why the fuck I couldn’t have just jacked off on my own time and transported the sperm later. I knew that there was a timing thing, but for fuck’s sake, I wasn’t trying to defuse a bomb in a minute. It actually made me wonder if there was some deeper plot going on with Emily that I didn’t know about. I tried not to think about it, but fuck, a paranoid mind was a difficult thing to tell to shut the fuck up.
Second of all, I’d had to avoid jacking off for three days, which organically had happened, but it meant all of yesterday evening, after I’d agreed to the deal with Emily, I had to walk around the city of arguably the most beautiful women in America and not so much as place my hand on my lap. I felt like an awkward teenager all over again, surrounded by hot girls and unable to do a damn thing about it. Ridiculous in one sense, but given five million was waiting on the other side, completely logical.
Third of all, there was a weird feeling going up and talking to the receptionist. I had a private room for me, but what the hell was I supposed to say to the receptionist?
“Hi, I’m Burke. I’m here to go to the private room so I can look at this video of this Brazilian gal eating out a Japanese chick to get hard enough to jack off into a cup? I sure hope I have good aim!”
I mean, for fuck’s sake. At least in danger, you had to keep your wits and focus about you and there was something stoic about it. Here, I would have killed to lose my wits and focus—except not only would my body and mind never allow me to do that, the rules of the clinic had dictated I not drink any alcohol twenty-four hours before. It was too far of a stretch to say that following all the rules felt like being in prison, but it wasn’t a stretch to say the lifestyle I had to follow for a few hours was far, far, far more restrictive than what I had to deal with on a day-to-day basis.
Five million fucking dollars wasn’t worth this embarrassment. Fifty million was a one-time shot. Five hundred million, and maybe you c
ould convince me to do this more than once.
But holy fuck, if Scott or Liam ever found out about this, I would have preferred for Snake to cut off my cock. I would never hear the end of it.
Despite what I was sure was a less-than-amusing attitude on my part, the receptionist led me to my room. And then, when we got inside, it somehow got worse.
“First, understand, please, no lube. And that includes saliva. We need a pure sample as possible.”
Jesus Christ, did donating sperm include getting rub burns on your cock? No lube? Not even at the fucking base?
“Second, make sure you get the first ejaculate into the cup. It’s the most sperm-rich.”
Holy hell, it was like being back in fifth grade and learning about sex for the first time. Maybe the teacher could go to the front of the class and use scientific terms. There was just something so very unappealing and very unsexy about hearing things like “ejaculate” and “sperm-rich.” If I had to pick something to kill a boner, this talk would be it.
“As soon as you finish ejaculating into the cup, please place the seal on it and place it in the drop-off bin right there. Make sure your information on the cup is correct first. Any questions?”
Oh, God, who would be the men who have questions by this point?
“No.”
Anything to get you the hell out of here so I can just get to fucking business.
“Great, take your time.”
As if.
Now I was left wondering how often dudes came in here ready to burst, only to have to take an hour just to approach orgasm after hearing hot sex reduced to something like a high school lab report. Fucking awful.
The door shut, and even though I knew what I wanted to do, I still felt awkward in the room. I knew there were no cameras but it felt so…wrong. I loved pussy, I loved sex, I loved getting it on anywhere and anytime, but there was a huge difference between being a sex fiend and a creepy pervert and having to unzip my pants so I could stroke myself in a sterile doctor’s office.
And then I thought about the guys who might had missed their cups and landed some on the floor, and now I just wanted to fucking die and go home. Five million? I already had something like eight million in the bank; why the fuck did I subjugate myself to this shit?
“OK, just get it the fuck over with,” I muttered to myself.
I leaned back on a table and unlocked my phone and opened a video I had saved, which was indeed lesbians from Brazil and Japan getting it on. Or, perhaps better said, two girls from Brazil and Japan who had put on a show for me. We’d all agreed to record it so long as no one ever leaked it. So far, so good. In theory, given that that was one of the best sexual encounters I’d ever had in my life, it should have gotten me rock solid and ready to pump and finish.
But…
Well, it did get me hard. I could give it that much. And when they started to get naked, the pants came off and the rubbing happened.
But I couldn’t maintain it.
For whatever fucking reason, arguably the hottest sexual encounter of my life was now involving me rubbing one out, staying somewhat hard, but not to the point where I could feel the point of no return hitting. I…I couldn’t…
Fucking Emily.
I knew it as soon as the thought came to mind. All this porn in the world, even one shot with two beautiful, exotic women that I would later fuck for their own phones, wouldn’t do it for me. I might not have been able to admit it out loud, or even to myself in my mind, but it sure fucking seemed like I had a thing for Emily that was suddenly causing me to go very stiff.
I let my imagination run. I was in her room, her naked body splayed out before me. I took off my shirt and unbuckled my pants. I kept my boxers on, but only because the slow reveal was at my pace. She looked up at me, her curvy breasts begging for me to come and suckle on them. I raised an eyebrow in excitement.
“You like what you see?” I said. “Wait until you feel this.”
I imagined myself dropping my boxers. In real life, I could feel that first initial tension—the early warning sign that orgasm was imminent. I imagined myself walking over to Emily, my cock erect and proud. She smiled, sat up, grabbed it with one hand, and wrapped her lips around it. She—
“Oh!”
In real life, I was at the point of no return. I hurriedly found the cup, positioned it just at the tip of my dick, and barely got it there in time for the first rope of cum. I closed my eyes as I stroked furiously, trying to get everything in while thinking about Emily’s plump lips sucking me off. Oh, it was fucking incredible.
…fucking incredible that the mere thought of Emily first putting her lips around me, let alone doing anything else, had managed to work its wonders.
And now, as I slowly came to, I realized just what the hell I’d found myself in. I had my pants around my ankles, I was leaning against a medical bed, one hand was holding a cup, one hand was holding my dick, and in short time, I’d be getting paid five million dollars and a collector’s car for this ridiculous, business transaction.
I sat up, feeling a bit sheepish, and put the lid on the cup. I looked for tissue nearby and used it to clean myself as best as I could. I checked the identifying information on the cup, confirmed its accuracy, and slid it onto a tray.
“Jesus Christ,” I said. “Most bizarre shit I ever did.”
I walked to the door, pausing to make sure I had zipped, buckled, and fit everything back on properly. I already felt like a creep having done all this, last fucking thing I needed was to walk out and have the receptionist point out that I hadn’t zipped my pants or something stupid like that.
When I did that, I walked out, stopped at the receptionist desk, and she smiled at me like I’d just come in to get an earache checked out.
“You’re all set. Thanks for coming in.”
Christ. To say that I was glad this was over was an understatement; given the chance to do it again, I probably would have chosen a run-in with Snake or pirates in Somalia instead.
I gave a curt nod, kept my head down, and hurried the hell out of the clinic. If I never had to go through something like that again, my life would be better for it. God bless the men who donated sperm on the regular.
I got to the hallway that hosted the clinic and a few other places. I found the stairs, jogged down the two flights, and came out to the lobby. I—
“How’d it go?”
“What are you doing here?” I said, not bothering to hide any surprise or disgust.
“You think you’re the only one who has to do things to prepare for this?” she said with a playful smirk. “I have to do injections and get other things taken care of. It’s just a coincidence that I’m here.”
There’s no such thing as coincidences. Only incidents that we don’t have the full context to.
“But since you’re here, let me ask you something. How’d you like to get dinner?”
“I don’t do dinner with clients.”
Emily recoiled, but I could tell she kind of forced it, like she knew I was going to say that and was trying to play the part of being surprised.
“I wasn’t asking you on a date,” she said with an awkward laugh, suggesting that was, in fact, exactly what she had hoped would happen. “I just said I wanted dinner. I can bring the parental rights agreement. We can get the rest of the logistics sorted out.”
“And I wasn’t saying anything other than what I said.”
Emily pursed her lips.
“Lunch tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“Why are you being so difficult?”
I sighed. I could get on the plane as soon as tomorrow afternoon. That might work, actually. It would get me out of this.
“Set it up for your lunch break,” I said. “And keep in mind my flight out is at three in the afternoon. So—”
“No worries!” Emily said, and without another word, she walked past me, a smile she couldn’t contain on her face.
I almost felt bad playing hardball
with her. She was a sweet girl, a beautiful girl, and one I just jerked off thinking about…
But now I was realizing that what Scott and Liam had done with their women wasn’t just something that happened out of the blue. It wasn’t like they fucked their women on a whim and said, “welp, guess I’m stuck with her!” It had happened as a sort of slippery slope.
I had to be careful. I’d already taken one step on the slope. I hadn’t fallen yet, but I was playing with fire.
At least it was a “hot” fire.
Is there any rule, anyway, about hooking up with clients once the deal is fulfilled? I mean, you shot your load.
No, I couldn’t think like that. And even if there was a loophole, I had four weeks that this process needed to take. I couldn’t do anything more than lunch tomorrow for the next four weeks. This was how Scott and Liam got hooked in.
Get lunch tomorrow. Get on the plane to Connecticut at three. Take some time off and either wait for the next mission or plan for my own—
My phone rang.
I looked down. It was an unidentified number, which told me either a telemarketer had chosen to bug me at the worst possible time, or it was Scott or Liam.
“Hello,” I said.
“We know where he is.”
It was Scott.
And I immediately knew who “he” was.
“I just got intel that there’s another ‘shipment’ en route. It’s in Mexico this time, just left Tlaxcala, and is headed up to the States.”
More sex trafficking. Snake’s getting worse.
“I’m in Maine. Liam is in Colorado. Burke—”
“I’m on the nest flight as soon as I can,” I said. “I’ll get there.”
“Just don’t do anything that would get you killed, don’t be a fucking hero,” Scott warned. “We need to intercept that shipment and save the girls, but we have time. As long as we get there before it gets here T—”
“I can handle my shit, Scott,” I said.
It was nothing personal. I just didn’t like anyone, even fellow members of DOM, getting in my way. And I especially didn’t like Snake still being out on the loose.