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1. Can't Take It

My mother always said that I was conceived by the wrong man. If my father had been rich and healthy, I would have made it to the better side of the fence.
The only other way to make it over there was by becoming a surrogate mother for rich families and after that was settled, you were back where you came from within minutes.

I had not been to the other side yet. My mother had been there eleven times already, all under the age of 36.

I was one of these children and I had just turned 19 a few days ago.

Normally, once you reached 18, you had to start the process. I had been trying to escape that unwanted pregnancy for over a year now.

But it was time to face reality.

We were slowly, but surely becoming poorer and poorer. There were no other jobs on our side of the fence other than the baby machinery.

"Mother, I can try and bargain with her," I said to the woman who brought me to this earth. She shook her head. We were sitting in our little kitchen, watching the sun go up.

"You will not reach anything with that logic," my mother uttered. "She wants you and she wants me. We can't escape it any longer."

My mother looked broken and sad. Her body seemed older than the one of a 36-year-old woman. "You can't take it anymore, mother. I will not let her do this to you."

"I have four years to go on the official market. After that I have ten years on the black market. For them I am still young as a teenager," she said, annoyed. Her spirit was in pieces. There was no gleam in her eyes. More than eleven children of hers were on the better side of town. I was the only one she had ever see grow.

She cut the topic because there was a knock on the door. I hurried to open it. We expected them later, but here they were.

Three strong muscular women working for Mistress Raser were impatiently waiting. They were armed, in case we tried to escape.

My mother followed me outside and watched them put me in handcuffs. She was next.

I watched the shadow of our little house fade while they drove us away.

I had 21 official years to go. With all my heart I prayed that I survived them.

***

"The Lanotte family. Always so eager to escape your duties," Mistress Raser uttered the minute she saw my mother and me enter her office.

We sat down on the opposite site of her desk, so that she was facing us straight away.

"Your mother knows the procedure," she started. Her appearance was strict and uncomforting. "The agency will send you to the family and they will choose whether they want the natural or the in vitro version. You will remain in custody of the family for nine months and then you will return."

My mother had only told me of the in vitro version. I tried to keep my calm, but within seconds I blurted out, "I want to make it easier for my mother. I would like to take over her remaining years."

There was an uncomfortable silence in the air. Mistress Raser looked at me as if I were crazy. "Are you aware of the rules, Stella Lanotte?"

I am introducing the agency in the first chapters - the real thing is coming very soon!