The Surrogate Ch. 01

Chapter One - An Indecent Proposal

"She's gone. She left for Australia yesterday with her fucking yoga teacher. How fucking cliché!" Peter Randal stared down into his drink.

"I mean the guy even looks like Chris Hemsworth for fuck sake... and that accent! What a joke! I should have seen it coming a mile away," Peter choked down his scotch and poured another.

Miles Francis sat nursing his own drink listening to his brother-in-law and couldn't help but feel a little schadenfreude. He had always been jealous of Peter Randal and his sister, Peter's trophy-wife Mila.

Miles even hated that his twin sister was called Mila, a name so close to his own. They were fraternal twins being brother and sister and they were almost identical. When they were younger, they were often mistaken for each other by family members and friends; not helped by the fact that their mother Cynthia liked to dress them identically.

"There goes the job. A fucking six figure salary north of five hundred K. The fucking house, the cars, all the fucking perks gone because that bitch wants to pat kangaroos and fuck Crocodile Dundee," Peter ranted.

"So your love for Mila extends as far as your pocketbook," Miles said sarcastically.

"Oh come on Miles, you know our marriage has been a sham for over a year. We've both been fucking around on each other. It's not like we have any kids to keep us together. We would have separated anyway if it wasn't for the prospect of this job," Peter sucked down his drink.

Miles and his sister had been inseparable until Mila met Peter Randal in her teens. Peter had been captain of their high school football team and valedictorian; he had gone on to college and graduated with honours with degrees in both law and business. Mila had followed him and they married not long after Peter graduated. Peter climbed the corporate ladder at an astounding rate; he was headhunted by some of the most successful companies and he had all the trappings of success: the pretty wife, the opulent down-town apartment, the luxury cars, and the exorbitant lifestyle.

Their excesses fuelled by greed and uncontrollable appetites had been the downfall of their marriage. They had both been spiralling down towards rock bottom due to their exorbitance: booze, drugs, sex and high-rolling. Living in Los Angeles offered every kind of temptation.

"Look at this place Miles. The mortgage is crippling, the cars are leased and the bank accounts are nearly empty and I'm in hock up to my neck to some very bad people," Peter confessed.

This came as a surprise to Miles who thought Peter and Mila were literally rolling in it.

"But I thought you guys were rich, millionaires or something?" Miles said.

"It went out faster than it came in, not helped by your sister I might add; that woman has expensive tastes," Peter sighed.

"Maybe if you'd spent more time with her she might not have needed to spend to feel good and she would still be with you now," Miles said frankly.

"Look, we both have our faults but this job was going to save our marriage and fix our financial woes," Peter filled his glass again.

"I don't think moving to a new town and taking a new job would have fixed anything. Isn't that what alcoholics call 'doing a geographical?'" he couldn't help having a dig at Peter.

"You don't understand Miles. This job... this fucking job was with the Sons of Jehovah. They never hire anyone from outside their church but I have exceptional skills that they desperately want and we were prepared to live by the religious tenets of their church while I was employed by them."

"And that's you? Mister exceptional skills and his Stepford wife?" Miles guffawed.

"We made a pact. We would play the part for a year or two or three until we got out of the hole. But Mila fucked me good and proper. She waited until I had the new job locked in and had tendered my resignation from my current position before she left me with that tanned Aussie doofus," Peter drank a swallow of his Macallan whisky.

"Can't you just turn up and say that Mila has had an accident or is needed at home by the family or something?" Miles asked.

"You don't understand Miles. These fuckers required a family tree and conducted background checks; they don't pay outsiders north of half a million dollars a year unless they can trust them. They know that Mila has no close family except for you and that my family are respectable church-going farmers."

"Fuck, I even had to send them pictures of Mila, along with a fucking genealogical chart... and then we had to fly out there to be interviewed."

"Under no circumstances do they allow single men to live amongst them. It's some Commandment or some shit; I don't know, but it's forbidden."

"I'm screwed Miles. There are things about my employment with the SOJ that I can't tell you, but they are not going to be happy when I tell them I can't work for them. The retribution is likely to be severe."

"But wouldn't they have found out about your excesses?" Miles asked.

"During the interview we fessed up that we had gone through a rough patch but had gone to marriage counselling and that our marriage was now as solid as ever. They love that shit. Honesty, reconciliation and commitment... if they only knew that Mila had blown some guy in the toilet on the airplane on the way home. Her little way of humiliating me and letting me know that she was holding all the cards."

"Sounds to me like you need a Mila doppelganger," Miles joked.

"Well I can't say it's been fun and to be honest, I was never your fan but I'm sorry for both yourself and Mila. That said, I'm flat broke and living in a cockroach infested tenement so you won't get much sympathy from me I'm afraid," Miles got up to leave.

"Well whose fault is that? You're thirty-three years old and still tossing burgers. You dropped out of college and hooked up with your buddies thinking you were going to be rock stars; Christ, you haven't had a steady job since you left school," Peter said bitterly.

While Peter had been the captain of the football team, Miles had shown no physical abilities at all. He was slender and almost effeminate; he'd been a Goth and then an Emo kid for a while. His interests were music and the arts, he was quiet and emotionally attached to his sister until she took up with Peter when all that changed and she started to look down on Miles as he struggled to get along while she pinned herself to Peter's coattails.

"I don't even know why you called me. You don't like me and we haven't been close since Mila married you," Miles was putting on his coat.

"I guess because regardless of everything you are still family. My asshole friends will take great pleasure when they find out I've missed out on the chance of a lifetime and my family don't approve of my lifestyle so who else's shoulder was I going to cry on?" Peter downed that last of his drink.

"Well sobering up would be a good start. If Mila ever gives you her contact details pass them on to me and I guess I'll see you around... well I probably won't. Don't worry Peter; assholes like you have a way for falling on their feet. I'll show myself out," Miles said with some finality.

On the way out miles looked around the luxury apartment with awe and envy. He shrugged his shoulders and shivered at the thought of the cold-water flat that awaited him.

"Anyway... fuck Peter and Mila," he hissed as he pressed the button for the private elevator.

*****

Peter did sober up the next day but he was in a pique of melancholy. He was sitting in the master bedroom going through old pictures on his tablet when he found one that made him smile. It was Miles and Mila. Miles was dressed in a tuxedo and Mila was dressed in an evening gown. Mila looked pretty and was showing a lot of leg through the split in the side of her satin dress.

He read the caption Miles and Mila - Halloween 2003 and then he realised what he was looking at. Miles and Mila aged seventeen going to their last Halloween dance. They had dressed as each other and looking at the picture it was nearly impossible to tell them apart. He remembered the night well because he had been astounded at their resemblance to each other and he wouldn't kiss or feel up Mila until she got changed after the dance because it was just plain weird trying to canoodle with your girlfriend when she looked exactly like her brother.

They both had long blonde hair and Miles still kept his hair long and wore earrings in both ears, trying to hang on to his halcyon days when his band was going somewhere. They had played the gig at the Halloween dance that night and Miles had remained dressed as Mila while on stage and the crowd had gone wild.

The cogs started slowly turning in Peter's brain as the cobwebs of his hangover dissipated. He stepped into an icy-cold shower to fully wake himself up and then treated himself to a long hot shower where the seeds of a plan started to germinate. He came out of the ensuite bathroom dressed in his bathrobe and stared at the Halloween picture while he worked the phone.

Mila had friends in the theatre and therefore by default so did Peter. One of those friends, Steven Boutros, liked nose candy and Peter had been his source for a while. Steven was one of the few theatre friends they had who was straight and he and Peter had hit on a few of the young actresses in Steven's theatre production company with varying degrees of success. Peter gave Steven a call and invited him around for drinks and some blow.

Steven was immediately suspicious when Peter drank spring water while Steven drank expensive Macallan whisky and snorted a couple of lines.

"So why did you invite me around to a party and then sit there sober?" Steven asked.

"I got this crazy idea that you might be able to help me with. You've coached actors for years right?" Peter sipped his spring water.

"Yeah. So what's this crazy idea?"

Peter picked up his tablet and showed him the Halloween picture.

"You gotta be fucking kidding me?" Steven chuckled when Peter told him his plan.

"Look, only a couple of people out there in Redhaven have met Mila, and then only briefly. The resemblance is uncanny right?" Peter had switched to scotch.

"Do you realise the commitment involved? Does he?" Steven wagged a finger at Peter.

"He would have to literally become Mila twenty-four, seven for as long as you're there. There can be no vacations from her once he becomes her, if he reverts to himself, even for a short while, he's libel to fuck up."

"What do you mean twenty-four seven? Can't he just dress like her when I need her? You know parties, work gatherings, dinners and shit." Peter swallowed and poured.

"That won't work; they will want her to socialise with the other wives, charities, church shit, those SOJ women are almost fucking Stepford wives."

"Or somebody drops by. 'Where's Mila?' they ask. 'Well she ain't here but her identical brother is,' you say. 'No shit! He spends a lot of time here but he never spends time with his sister.'"

"How long you think that will play? Miles will need to be committed to becoming Mila full time."

Peter was thinking it was the second time now that he heard the term Stepford wife and wondered if the prospect of that lifestyle been the catalyst for Mila's departure

"Ok Steve I get it. How long will it take you to teach him, to train him, whatever the fuck you call it?" Peter was excited now.

"How long do you have?" Steven finished his drink and held out his glass for more.

"Three weeks," Peter topped off Steven's drink.

"But that's not the question. The question is how much?" Peter grinned.

"Well now. This is gonna be a lot of work plus you're buying my secrecy... so how much you got?" Steven grinned back.

They went back and forth for a while and finally struck a deal.

"There's one more thing," Peter offered Steven the small mirror with the blow cut into lines.

Steven did a line in each nostril.

"Yeah what's that?" Steven rubbed the residue off the mirror into his gums.

"I haven't told Miles yet," Peter took back the mirror and did a couple of lines while Steven unleashed a string of obscenities.

*****

"You're fucking joking right? You can't be serious!" Miles was astounded at Peter's proposition.

"I've made a few enquires Miles. You still have unpaid student loans, you're about to be evicted by your landlord and you owe money all around town."

"I'll acquit all your debts. You'll have somewhere nice to live, some getting around money, a car, freedom to do whatever you want except when I need you," Peter opened his hands wide in an exaggerated gesture.

"You don't have any money; you told me so," Miles replied.

"I have money, just not the kind I'm used to having and anyway I have an advance from the Sons of Jehovah."

"So I get all this stuff and the freedom to do whatever I want so long as I live my life pretending to be my sister," Miles exhaled.

"You're crazy. Even if I agreed to your preposterous plan, I could never pull it off."

"Sure you could. You look like her, you even sound a lot like her with that whiney dusky voice of hers," Peter chuckled.

"Way to get me to agree to your ridiculous proposal; insult me," Miles stood up to leave.

"Hey, hey, hey... I was just getting in practice treating you like I do Mila," Peter reached out to calm Miles down.

Miles sat back down and took a beer when Peter offered it.

"How long?" Miles asked.

Peter felt a little uplifted by the question.

"I'd say we do it for a year. It would need to be at least that long to meet my contractual obligation to the SOJ Church patriarchs."

"Then we figure it out; they want me for two years. If you wanna leave after a year, maybe we have a marital dispute and you leave me, something like that. But if we don't agree to live by their church rules I get nothing. I'll be in breach of contract."

"And Mila knew this when she left you?" Miles took a pull on his beer and Peter nodded.

"Man, she really twisted the knife," Miles smiled wickedly.

"And now the real question. If and I mean if... and it's a huge if... If I was to do it; how much do I get?"

"I told you. You get to live in a nice house, get the use of a nice car, some running around cash and three squares a day plus the pleasure of my company," Peter raised his bottle and gestured to Miles.

Miles held his bottle close to his chest.

"That's the problem. I have to live in the same house as you. I want more than running around money; I want half," Peter swigged at his bottle.

"You're fucking crazy Miles. Mila wouldn't have got half is she'd stayed," Peter growled.

"I bet she would have and probably more. I understand you lovebirds had no prenup," Miles smiled and drank again.

"You stick to it. No bailing out once we're in... and you do everything that Steven Boutros tells you to," Peter said resignedly.

"Steven who?" Miles asked.

"You'll find out. Get out of that shithole you're living in and put whatever you own that you think might be worth anything in storage. You're moving in here tomorrow. You have three weeks to become your sister; you already drive me crazy like she does," Peter held out his bottle and Miles finally clinked his against it.

*****

Miles had very little to put into storage: a big Marshall stage amp, a Gibson Les Paul Custom and a cherry-red Gibson SG were the only things he owned of any value.

But there was one last thing he was going to do before he left his flat. His landlord was an asshole but his wife Linda was quite attractive for a larger woman in her fifties and she'd been giving Miles the eye. Linda liked to get around in tight skirts and dresses showing off her big tits and long legs which she always kept swathed in sheer nylons and her feet were perpetually shod in high-heels. She had big red hair and her face had been worked on, her lips were formed in a perpetual pout. The drummer in his band called them 'blow-job lips'.

Miles caught up with her in the basement laundry where she was bending over one of the machines putting in her washing. Her dress had ridden up and he could see right up her thighs to her purple satin panties which encased her large firm buttocks. Miles had a thing for a good pair of legs in pantyhose; he liked the sheen of the diaphanous material and the soft, silky feel of the fabric when he ran his hands along a calf or a thigh.

The other two machines were going flat out on the spin cycle and Linda hadn't heard him come in. He closed the door and locked it. Miles crept up behind Linda, all the time admiring those big firm thighs and that luscious plump derriere.

Miles waited until he was directly behind her before he spoke.

"Hello Linda."

Linda jumped; startled by his presence. Then she turned around. It took her a few seconds to gain her composure during which her dress remained high up on her thighs and Miles did not hide the fact that he was ogling them. Linda blushed and then gained her aplomb, pulling down the hem of her dress and smiling at him with those plump red-lipsticked lips. She was blushing.

"Hello Miles," her smile widened when she saw it was him.

"I'm afraid this is going to be goodbye. I'm moving out," he spoke directly to her buxom breasts.

Her tits had had some work done too. They were big, straining at the buttons of her aqua-blue Charmeuse dress that was so inappropriate for housework but typical of her. Linda always looked like she was dressed for a night on the town with her short skirts, high heels, big hair and heavy makeup. She and her husband Stanislav were Slavic of some sort; he was skinny, mean and spoke poor English. Linda was generous, extravagant with her gestures, touchy one might say, and spoke good English with a Ukrainian accent. She was the personification of the overdressed, some would say vulgar, Slavic woman living in the West with some money to spend on herself.

Instead of leaning back away from Miles she stepped closer, almost touching him and he was enveloped in miasma of perfume. She touched him gently on the shoulder, her fingers were long and her manicured fingernails were bright-red, just like her lipstick.

"It's Stanislav isn't it? I told him to fix the plumbing in your flat and replace the cooktop but who listens to an old woman like me?" her eyes were bright and she was smiling with that saucy grin of hers.

Miles knew that she was bullshitting. Stanislav might be a tight-fisted, mean, cantankerous asshole but he worshipped Linda and was at her beck and call.

"I'll be so sorry to see you go," Linda stroked his cheek affectionately.

"Me too," Miles smiled wanly.

"Will you miss poor little Linda?" she doubled down on the pout.

"I'll miss that I never got the chance to fuck you," Miles grinned at her.

Her mood changed and he saw the anger rise in her eyes and she pulled her hand away from his face and bought it back and raised it, ready to slap him. Miles caught her wrist mid-slap, his eyes never leaving hers. He could see the glint of lust under the anger and instead of backing away she held her ground, almost challenging him.

Miles pulled Linda into him, still holding her wrist. He crushed his lips against hers and he felt a sob in the back of her throat. It wasn't a sob of dismay, it was growl of lust. He let go of her wrist and pulled Linda hard against him, her pillowy breasts felt wonderful against his chest. He was wearing a thin T-shirt and he could feel the heft of her bosom squashing against him.

Linda feigned a struggle, it was half-hearted and it was more like she was wriggling against him than trying to escape, she didn't even break their kiss. Suddenly she stopped. She pressed her hands against his chest and leaned back a little but Miles still held her in his embrace.

"An old woman like me is no match for a strong young man like you. You have overpowered me and I am yours for the taking. Please just spare my Stanislav the indignity of knowing that his wife was forced to surrender her virtue."