Chapter 10 – Damara
Chapter Ten
Damara
But Magnum? Take care of me? The idea makes me feel weird as a long time strong independent woman.
Is that how this little club works? No wonder the black women married to men in the club seem content with their arrangements. Tamiya works, but if I had the option to avoid that mess and focus on creating art or poetry, I would skip the work in an instant.
Magnum takes the phone away from me with an excessively prideful look on his face from my excellent performance.
I hope he doesn’t think I’ll be letting him off easy, especially not since he clearly thinks he’s won because I didn’t scream into the phone and beg Tamiya for rescue.
He finishes up his conversation with Tamiya and when Magnum hangs up and gives me that evil ass look, I wonder if I’ve made the right choice.
“You’re choosing to be with me,” he says immediately. “Interesting.”
“I want to solve this mystery and I’m not letting you out of my sight while I might be pregnant until you cook up a favorable child support agreement.”
“Child support agreement?”
“I’m not bringing a white man’s child into the world without a contract.”
“That has to be some of the most racist shit I have ever heard,” Magnum says, without a hint of irony about his indignation. Like most white men, he seems to be delusional about these topics.
“Your club’s charter had slurs in it until recently.”
“I never heard it read out loud,” Magnum responds gruffly, in the most absurd use of a loophole I’ve ever seen.
He’s done nothing to change my mind about the contract, which is far more important for me to focus on compared to his personal opinions.
I don’t care if he thinks all black people have six toes on their right foot.
If I’m going to risk pregnancy, I’m not going to risk it without a contract.
Worst case scenario, I’ll threaten to jump out the window. Men think women with colorful hair are insane, so he’ll probably believe me.
“I won’t run. I won’t fight you. I’ll do whatever you want for the next 39 weeks… if I’m pregnant. You give me money, we solve this little mystery together and… if you need to hunt someone down and kill them, I’ll help you.”
“What the fuck?”
“What? You’re in an outlaw biker club. I’m not stupid.”
Magnum seems hesitant in a way that almost comes across as afraid. “What type of woman offers to participate in a murder?”
“I’m not some virginal eighteen year old, Magnum.”
“I know that,” he says, again giving off a vibe like I’m annoying him or something.
“Okay. I can handle myself and I can handle a gun. So if that’s what you have to put in your contract, go ahead and count me in.”
“You’re fucking crazy.”
“Should I diagnose you too?”
“I’ll write you a contract. But you’re out of your fucking mind if you think I would have you anywhere near that type of danger.”
“Whatever. I’m not some fragile ass woman.”
“I’ll be in my office,” Magnum says angrily, although I still can’t figure out why. “Take a pen and paper, come up with something you want to do with yourself while I’m working.”
“Excuse me?”
“A job,” Magnum says. “You don’t seem like you have one but… I don’t trust a woman like you with idle hands.”
“A woman like me?”
“You have time to keep that hair bright pink. It means you have time on your hands. That will change.”
“This is starting to feel like a hostage situation.”
Magnum grunts and hands me a notepad and pen from his pocket. He’s not even joking. This man wants me to sit there and find some purpose in my life? I’m forty-two years old and I haven’t found my purpose in life yet.
Will a fucking notepad really help me out?
“I’ll be back in twenty minutes,” he says. “Get some good ideas down on that paper.”
“You kidnap me against my will and now I’m supposed to figure out a plan?”
“Start a fucking bakery for all I care,” Magnum says gruffly before storming off. What is wrong with this man? Start a bakery… as if my ass would be in the kitchen cooking croissants all day and all night.
He leaves so I have to stare at the blank piece of paper instead of starting an argument with Magnum to distract him from the situation. I guess for the first few weeks of being pregnant, I’ll get bored staying at home watching television the entire time. Not with the power of Netflix but…
I guess I had better come up with something on this list. Whatever I come up with, I don’t want to work for a private investigator. That much I’m aware of.
Start a weed farm.
Yeah, I’m sure Magnum will love that. I laugh at the idea, even if I halfway mean it.
I had a plant back in Utah with my first Mormon boyfriend, but he dumped me after he caught me skipping church to smoke weed once.
I had a wild youth. It might be a good idea to settle down on the supply side now that I’m almost forty…
My next idea is slightly less crazy.
Bake custom cakes.
It’s a pretty hot side hustle these days and I used to decorate the cakes at Walmart for extra money in my early twenties. It’s amazing how all those years sort of blend together. In case the custom cake idea fails, I want to have another idea on this list. Magnum might hate all the ideas, anyways.
Start a boba tea shop.
That one is just crazy, since I don’t know anything about boba tea and I don’t even like it. I just notice a lot of them popping up and how expensive it can get to make tapioca pearls. Non-alcoholic bars and matcha cafes like that are popular in Utah.
Be a stay at home wife and get into the best shape of my life.
Listen, what if Magnum goes for it? I don’t love cooking and cleaning, but it’s only for the next nine or ten months, right?
I need to do more research about babies.
Also, I need to plan for the other option – I’m not pregnant and I’ll be out on my ass in a few weeks once Magnum and I track down the person who drugged us.
Magnum might not like this list, but it’s the best I’ve got. I put the television on and start watching… Murder She Wrote. Girl, I guess. This is the type of television show you see at the dentist’s office. This man must have cable and Netflix, right?
After an hour or so, he emerges from his office with a stack of documents.
“I had my lawyer send this over,” Magnum says to me, finally drawing my attention off the television. This show is a lot more gripping than I expected, even with all the corny parts.
“You have a lawyer?” I ask as I look up at him.
I’m glad I spoke before looking at Magnum because I don’t expect him to walk out of his office looking like a snack.
He doesn’t have that leather jacket on right now.
Magnum has his sleeves rolled up and a pair of glasses on.
Why does he look like a sexy CEO right now?
My mouth waters as I grab the stack of papers from Magnum, suppressing my attraction to this literal kidnapper.
My trauma has finally broken my brain, because I shouldn’t be attracted to this man in the slightest. I’m sure whatever he has written in this contract will break me of the fixation.
His thick forearms flex dramatically as he hands me the papers and I try to focus on the typed up words.
It doesn’t take me long to formulate a response. “Are you insane?”
“Give me your list,” Magnum demands, snatching the list from me before I actually even hand it over to him. This man is so damn irritating. I can’t even glare at him, because I have to face the insane contract he alleges a lawyer came up with.
“This contract literally says that if I don’t get pregnant, you have the right to make continued attempts to impregnate me unless we discover who drugged us first.”
“Yes.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“It’s not.”
“What if I’m not fertile? I’m forty-two years old.”
I’m no baby expert, but for many women, fertility decreases dramatically after they turn thirty.
And what about Magnum? He doesn’t look old, but he’s no spring chicken either.
He must be in his forties too. I don’t know if the rules are the same for men, but pressing your crotch against a vibrating motorcycle as a hobby can’t be good for the sperm situation.
The expression on Magnum’s face immediately causes me to regret using the word “fertile” in front of him. He doesn’t even try to contain his excitement.
“You look fertile enough.”
“What does that mean?”
His eyes dart down to my boobs and gleam with unbridled lust. I make a poor effort to cover my boobs up from his prying gaze more than they already are. Magnum chuckles with smug entitlement. This man has lost his goddamn mind, I swear.
“Nice tits. Nice ass. Soft ass–”
“Okay, I get it.”
Magnum chuckles again and then holds my list up. “I didn’t know you were an entrepreneur.”
“I’m not. According to you, I’m unemployed.”
“Do you have a profession I somehow missed?”
“I ran a daycare.”
“Right,” he says. “Starting a weed farm sounds a lot more fun than hunting down killers, racists and cheaters.”
He’s right about that, but I don’t want to give Magnum more validation than absolutely necessary. He can’t seriously expect me to sign this insane pregnancy contract. By the time I get to the end of the document, my stomach falls straight into my ass.
“You can’t be serious,” I blurt out, glancing at Magnum to see a big grin on his face.
“The art of the deal,” he says.
“I’m going to ignore that reference.”
“You’re going to sign that document,” Magnum says with so much self-assuredness that I want to throw the document at him and smack him in the face instead. “I know you’re going to sign it, and you know you’re going to sign it.”
“I can see why you’re single.”
He laughs. “I won’t be single for long.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
I feel even more reluctance to sign. Did I miss some type of legal language where I become this man’s girlfriend – or worse – in addition to the baby situation?
“It means that you’re going to fall in love with me,” he says. “Then I won’t have to look for a wife or a girlfriend anymore. It’s really going to be the simplest solution for all of us.”
“I don’t remember seeing that in the contract.”
“It’s not in the contract,” Magnum says. “Just a crazy idea I had.”
“We can agree it’s a crazy idea,” I respond to Magnum, holding his gaze so he knows that I’m serious.
I’m agreeing to allow him control over almost every aspect of my life for the next 39 to 45 weeks, depending on our “situation” with the pregnancy.
I’m agreeing to have his baby and share joint custody with him for the next eighteen years in exchange for an upfront payment of $4,200,000 with a monthly stipend of $25,500 for expenses and child care.
All I have to do is fuck a man I already fucked twice. GIRL!
Magnum knows we’re both going to sign, but I don’t want to look like I’m giving in too easily.
This man doesn’t know who he’s dealing with.
I’ve lived life on the edge for my whole life.
I ran away from home. I’ve been involved with criminals far worse than the outlaw bikers who spend most of their time working and boo’ed up.
I tried to kill two of my ex-boyfriends.
I spent a year in jail and became the “boss” because all the white girls were afraid of me.
Pregnancy and one six-foot-five white man with giant biceps and a pierced cock? How bad can it be?
“You’re going to sign.”
He takes the pen out of his pocket and hands it to me confidently.
“What do you think of my business ideas?”
“I think you’re trouble,” Magnum says. “But my accountant has an MBA, so I’ll run these ideas past him and see what he thinks.”
“How can I know you actually have this kind of money?”
“Call Tamiya and ask her.”
This man is so damn cocky. I hate that he’s so sure of himself, but I also hate that he’s right, and I hate that I’m strangely attracted to him.
Not enough to fall in love with him, but definitely enough that when he pushes me to the brink of attempted murder, I’ll be motivated to have hate sex with him instead.
He can’t really make me sign this contract, and I know it’s technically my choice, but I almost wish that it wasn’t. Because what kind of crazy person would sign this type of document and give her womb away for 39 weeks to a dangerous, potentially criminal outlaw.
“Perfect,” Magnum grunts once he gets what he wants. “Pleasure doing business with you, Damara.”