The Surrogate Ch. 06

Mila caught a glimpse of a beaten up VW beetle parked in the driveway before she slammed the door closed. The car was incongruous in a place like Redhaven, like an angry pimple on a pretty face.

Her sister looked around the spacious extravagance of the Randal household, walking slowly through the house, touching things, lifting and studying expensive knick-knacks and running her finger across polished surfaces while Mila stood in stunned silence.

"I'd heard you and Peter had made it good, but shit Miles, this is the fucking bomb," Mila's sister's upper-class, Mid-Atlantic accent had transformed into a blend of American street with a slight Australian strine over the years.

"And look at you brother of mine! You look more like me than me, but I'm reliably informed that you don't have a cunt," she smiled evilly.

"You certainly dress nice, although no one wears nylons anymore unless they're going to a wedding or a funeral."

Mila was dressed in a Saint Laurent skirt and blazer and Jimmy Choo heels and expensive pantyhose. Her whole outfit cost just south of eight thousand dollars. Her sister was dressed in a denim miniskirt, blue and white horizontal striped long-sleeve blouse, cork wedge sandals and her dirty-blonde hair was piled high on her head. She still affected dramatic eye makeup but she wore pink lip-gloss and her junk-jewellery was cheap and vulgar. The whole ensemble would have cost less than fifty dollars at K-Mart.

The five years that they had been apart had seen dramatic changes in both of their fortunes.

Her time in Australia had aged Mila's sister, she looked like she hadn't lived well and her tanned skin was ravaged by the sun.

"Come. Let me look at you," her sister took Mila by the hands led her into the lounge.

Mila was still astonished and unable to speak; her sister led her around like a dummy.

"I knew you had a thing for lingerie and nylons Miles, and you really liked dressing in my clothes and passing yourself off as me, but I never thought that you'd be a gender-bender," there was sarcasm and contempt in her words.

"Do you really like taking it up the ass? I find it quite uncomfortable on the rare cases I allow it," she whispered in Mila's ear.

"So... I go on a little overseas holiday and my brother steals my identity. My new name is Rachael Bunning by the way. It was really difficult getting false identity documents; but you wouldn't know about that. Of course yours are all legitimate, but it's as if I don't actually exist. Well I guess I don't really, because you are me and I'm Rachael."

"Are you going to say something, you life-stealing cunt!" Rachael's voice boomed through the empty house, her face screwed up with hostility and loathing.

The sudden explosion of anger bought Mila out of her reverie.

"This could all have been yours Mil... Rachael, but you traded in the opportunity for a yoga instructor and a life-long holiday in the antipodes," Mila snapped at her sister.

"I'm sorry, I still can't get used to looking at you. I keep seeing myself or at least what I should look like. But you're really just some kind of man-woman masquerading as me. I don't know how Peter can stand you!" Rachael fired back.

"Peter and I love each other. You drove a wedge deep into your marriage and broke it apart. Peter was no saint either but he changed, just as I did," Mila retorted.

"Hah! You can keep him. Him and his secrets and his coke and his sluts!" Rachael hissed.

"That's not him anymore. He's a good man," Mila replied.

"What do you want Rachael? You can't have this life because I'm living it. I am Mila Randal," Mila said firmly.

"You stole my identity, you stole my husband, you stole my life. But that's ok. I don't want it," Rachael walked over to the wet bar and poured herself a drink without asking.

"I thought you had made a life for yourself in Australia with Jeff the yoga guru?" Mila made her way to the bar and poured her own drink.

The sisters had finished venting and their anger had cooled. They were no longer shouting at each other.

"I heard that you split up with your boyfriend but I was told you were backpacking around the country," Mila sipped her gin and tonic, letting the alcohol soothe her.

"Well that's just it isn't it? When I left Peter he was broke and there were some really bad people out to get him and he was hoping that living with these Mormons, or whatever the fuck they are, for two or three or years would set him up," Rachael said and Mila declined to correct her about the religious order she belonged to.

"I got my revenge on him. I didn't think Peter would still be alive. But it turns out that Jeff's promises of living in a mansion in Vaucluse were full of shit. We lived in nice enough places until my money ran out. Do you know how much money a yoga teacher makes?" Rachael circled a finger indicating zero.

"After I dumped Jeff I did what I could to survive. There are thousands of illegals who skip their visas and are living in Australia undocumented and when you have this you can make a decent living," Rachael indicated her face and figure.

"But it's not what I wanted. Do you know what my last job was? I was a fucking barmaid in a pub! I was living in a backpacker hostel in Cairns surrounded by oversexed, over exuberant adolescents, for fuck sake!"

"Come on honey, you know that's not me."

"I tried to come home, only to find that my brother was now a woman and had stolen my identity. A mutual friend told me all about you. Seems he had a thing for me but made do with fucking a look-alike with a penis," Rachael snorted into her scotch.

"Steven Boutros," Mila whispered as the penny dropped.

"Steven Boutros, exactly. You and Peter pay him hush money, but I proposed a better deal and he took it and helped me get my identity documents. I did exactly what you did. I stole some else's identity," Rachael poured more liquor into her glass.

"So you can keep your shitty life with my husband and your shitty church friends, trapped here in Stepford. I'll make it easy for you," Rachael's eyes glimmered with hatred.

"So it's all about the money," Mila countered.

"Yep. I've no idea how much the two of you are worth, but I know it's a lot. You can keep Peter's money; all you have to do is transfer everything you have in your name into my bank accounts. Steven and I will split it and go gently into that good night as they say," Rachael slammed her glass down on the counter to emphasise her point.

"But you won't though. Your type never do. You always come back for more," Sarah appeared through the dining room entry dressed in her maid's uniform.

She had a pistol in her hand levelled at Rachael.

"Oh my fucking god you have a French maid! How decadent," Rachael scoffed.

The pistol was fitted with a silencer and when Sarah fired a round between Rachael's feet the report was muffled.

Rachael paled. She realised the predicament she was in. This was not how things were supposed to pan out. She was supposed to have the upper hand.

"The way I see it, if Rachael Bunning was to disappear, no one would notice. Just like no one went looking for Miles Frances," Sarah had a smirk on her face.

"Hey wait a minute," Rachael backed up to the breakfast bar.

"As for Steven Boutros. We know all about him and we have friends who can take care of him and make it look like it was an accident. That was always our intention but Mila had a soft spot for him so we allowed him to take his trickle of cash and keep schtum," Sarah elaborated.

She glanced at Mila who took a sip of her drink and shrugged her shoulders.

"But I'm your sister Mila! You wouldn't let these crazy people do anything to me!" Rachael's tone had changed from demanding to pleading.

Sarah put another shot just to the right of Rachael's hip which splintered the woodwork.

Rachael fell to her knees.

"I'm sorry! This was stupid! It was all Steven's idea! I'll go away and never come back!" Rachael begged though sobbing jags.

"That's an idea. Your sister could disappear and never come back; what do you think Mila?" Sarah's voice was heavy with sarcasm.

"No! Not like that! Don't kill me. I promise I won't say anything," Rachael pleaded.

"I think Peter should have a say," Mila said coldly.

"Yes I think you're right Mila. I'll call Officer Friendly and have that piece of shit car in the driveway towed away and disposed of and your sister taken out to the ranch. We have a place there where we can house people securely, you've seen it," Sarah said to Mila, cutting Rachael out of the conversation.

"Yes! Yes! Do that! Keep me somewhere safe until I can talk to Peter. Don't let the crazy maid shoot me!" Rachael implored her sister.

Sarah fired another warning shot, silencing Rachael.

"Do you think I'm a crazy maid Mila?" Sarah smiled at Mila.

Mila walked over to Sarah and kissed her quickly on the lips.

"Of course not darling," Mila turned and grinned at her sister.

*****

Mila and Peter approached the gates to the ranch; Mila was driving her new Bugatti. The guards waved them through and they drove up to the cluster of main buildings and parked next to the Chuck Wagon.

They walked over towards bunkhouses holding hands and veered towards a smaller one-story town-house comprising four ground-level apartments.

Rachael Bunning was sitting outside her apartment in her well-tended garden smoking a cigarette and drinking bourbon. She was dressed in hotpants, a tight satin blouse, sheer tan pantyhose and high heels. Her makeup was heavy but perfect; her once blonde hair was dyed jet black and cut into a severe bob.

The Council of the Apostles had kept Mila's sister locked up at the ranch for three weeks while they decided what to do with her. Most wanted her to just disappear, it was the safest option. Peter and Mila pleaded her case.

Rachael Bunning was a cunning, conniving bitch and when it came to fighting for her life she was willing to do anything. During those three weeks, Mila had visited Rachael and she had told her a little about the Sons of Jehovah and Rachael had latched onto the weekly conjugal visits performed by the spinsters.

"What if instead of bussing in a posse of hookers every Sunday there was a permanent presence out here? You know, a few of these spinsters rotate through here every week. I could... you know head them up, be the Madame, whatever the fuck you call it," Rachael had proposed to Mila.

"You know you could never leave. We will never trust you. This would be your life," Mila mused.

"Well given the alternative I think I can live with that, if you know, you make sure I'm comfortable," Rachael grinned.

And so Rachael Bunning lived comfortably out at the ranch, blissfully unaware of the tons of marijuana and methamphetamine being manufactured only a few hundred yards away from where she and three spinsters lived in their opulent apartments, wanting for nothing, but having to service the sexual needs of the ranch staff.

As Rachael herself had said, given the alternative, it wasn't a bad life.

Steven Boutros had disappeared and the investigation into his disappearance soon became a cold case. A neighbor claimed to have seen Steven getting into a car with two Latino gentlemen but had rescinded his statement soon after.

Peter opened the gate that led into to Rachael's well-tended little garden and stood aside so that Mila could enter first.

Rachael looked up at them both and smiled.

"Hey sis'; sucked any good cocks lately?" Mila grinned.

"I could ask you the same thing," Rachael returned the grin and hugged her sister.

The End

Author's note: I hope you enjoyed my story; tell me what you think. I had received several pleas for Mila's sister to reappear so I introduced the last few paragraphs to 'put a bow on it', so to speak. Maybe we will visit Mila again later but let's let her enjoy Redhaven for a little longer.

Michele Nylons, author and transvestite playgirl

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