My life had just gone to hell. After acquiring a mountain of debt going to college for my engineering degree, getting a great job, and buying a townhouse in Bath, Maine, where I was working for the Bath Iron Works, building ships for the US Navy as a subdivision of General Dynamics, I lost my job two weeks ago.
The economy had tanked during one of the worst recessions of the 21st century. Relations with Russia improved after Putin was assassinated and Russia pulled out of Ukraine. Relations with China improved when they got out of the Spratley Islands. Improved to the point the DOD cancelled the contracts on twenty pending Navy ships, including three at Bath Iron Works. My shipyard also built some commercial and private vessels, but with the recession, no one was buying yachts and container ships either. They still had some retrofitting and repair contracts, but nothing they needed engineers in the quantity that they'd hired me to fill.
Some of the older engineers took early retirement, and a lot of the newer engineers got laid off. Unemployment checks were not going to make my townhouse payment, let alone my student loans.
I'd immediately looked into going to work for other shipbuilding companies, but they were in the same boat as BIW. I tried networking with other graduates I'd attended classes with, and they were all in the same mess as I was. I'd even looked into building ships for Cruise Lines and private yacht builders overseas, but the recession was kicking their asses too. If I started work at something low paying like McDonald's or Burger King, I'd lose some of my unemployment benefits and wouldn't have time to look for another high paying job. I had roughly three months of living expenses in the bank, at which point, I'd be dead broke and declaring bankruptcy, unless I took money from my parents, which I didn't want to do since they were retired and had no new income.
By the way, my name is Jessica Huppert. I'm 5-9 inches tall, 125 pounds, athletic; high, firm, C cup breasts, dark brown hair, quick to smile, except for the last couple weeks. The reason I mention any of that at all, is I was wondering if I'd have to go into prostitution to pay the bills. That's how bad it was. Probably, not in Bath, Maine, which was too small, both to support a career in prostitution, and also small enough everybody knew what everyone else did, which is not something you need if going into an illegal profession. Portland, Maine might even be too small. I might have to go to Boston or some larger city, meaning I'd have to give up my townhouse on the rugged Maine coast, which I'd absolutely hate. I loved it here. I was feeling well and truly fucked, without even an orgasm to brag about.
I'd been going through newspapers, on-line ads, employment assistance sites, everything I could think of to fend off the approaching disaster, and I was feeling quite desperate and despondent at the lack of progress. I didn't even feel like I could go out and drown my sorrows in a bar, but maybe I could buy some cheap champagne and orange juice and inebriate myself to insensibility on mimosas.
I was about to close my web browser and call it a night, when a pop-up ad, in fact, popped up. Based upon your on-line browsing, they were normally the bane to going on-line in the first place. But I'd been searching for jobs, so this one was tied into that search.
"Need Money," the ad read, "Large sums of money to the right person interested in being a Surrogate Mother. Please contact this website for further information," with a website address to link to.
I had never considered renting out my womb before, thinking that if I wanted to have children, it would be with someone I loved, and married first. I wasn't totally opposed to the idea, thinking it might be easier for a future spouse to accept I'd had children before, than to accept I'd been a former prostitute. It might mean I could remain where I was as opposed to having to move, which would be a plus. I suppose it depended on how much money we were talking about for nine months of my life, and how the pregnancy would have to occur.
Not being stupid enough to click on some random link in a pop up ad, I did a little research first. The website was registered to a non-profit organization called Loup-Garou which had very little information about it that I could find anywhere, other than the organization filing, and it's current officers. The non-profit was located in Maine, a positive, as far as my life was concerned. There was nearly as little information about the officers, two male, and two female, as there was the non-profit itself, except they were all born and had addresses in Maine, and seemed to be doing fairly well financially, so I suppose they could afford to pay something for breeding expenses.
I wasn't totally willing to risk my computer to some possible virus or trojan horse, so I backed up my phone, then went to the website on my phone, feeling I could erase my phone and reload my info if the website was infected, not even risking my wifi network, by disconnecting the phone from my wifi system.
The website took me to an application, where I was asked my name, age, address and phone number. No account numbers, no SSN, no exact date of birth, although that would be easy enough to find with my name and age. There was no amount listed for renting out my womb, but it seemed safe enough, so I filled it out, and sent it. I got another pop-up, telling me that someone would be in touch with me in a couple of days with additional information.
Deciding to skip the drunk for now, I went to bed instead, although my financial straits kept my sleep restless, my dreams filled with visions of me carrying a child in my swollen belly.