Chapter Twenty-Four
The Contract
The next morning Alejandro woke me before sun rise so that we could prepare to leave. To make it on time and meet the 48-hour deadline we had to depart for a 26-hour flight to New York. Upon our arrival in New York, we would have around 6 hours to finish up the preparations for the auction.
Everyone in the house was running around packing and closing the house for the season. I eased out of the bed with Alejandro helped me. When I went in to get dressed, Alejandro went down to check on the progress of things. Rita helped me dress, did my hair and makeup, and packed the remainder of my things. As she finished up, she explained that the Chrome would return in Julian's plane and the indigos would fly commercial first class. We would be going back in Alejandro's plane with Julian, Ian, and Hilda.
That was perfect it gave us time to just rest before we had to deal with the rest of our plan. I was met in the hall by Julian, who leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek as a greeting, “I want to thank you for trying to make our visit comfortable. Ian has truly enjoyed being around you, He has a hard time making friends or gaining acceptance from others. Your request for him to be your Maid of Honor was kind. It made him feel like you accepted him for exactly who he is. And that Mistress counts more than anything in this world to him.”
Julian walked slowly down the hall with me and carried me down the stairs. When we reached Alejandro's office, he was fielding a flood of calls. He covered the mouthpiece of the phone and whispered “People are withdrawing their Announcements of Intention on the virginity bid seats. All but four have rescinded.” Julian laughed and walked out to find Ian.
I smiled. Boy was a good little puppet. He had managed to get the word out that I was no longer a virgin. Now the only bidder would be Alejandro, his parents, and Hilda. Phase one was a success.
Julian reappeared with Ian in tow just as Alejandro finished his phone conversation. “I really do not know what is going on, but we have the virginity contract in the bag.” I walked up to Alejandro, and he gave me a light kiss hello. Ian waited patiently to greet me with his own display of affection, with a cat ate the canary grin. Ian was slowly becoming my second favorite person in the universe.
The indigo had the luggage loaded into the cars and we all headed out to the airstrip for our flight. When we got to the airstrip Julian and Alejandro loaded our luggage while Hilda, Rita, Ian, and I boarded. We settled in and waited for Alejandro and Julian to board and for the plane to take off.
It was a long flight. Rita and Hilda played rummy, Julian and Alejandro talked about various topics, and Ian and I looked through the wedding plan book. Occasionally Ian would squeal with delight and disturb everyone, then comment directly to Hilda when he did not approve of something else.
When Alejandro and Julian started talking about politics, I quickly requested that Ian come to the bedroom with me to work on and review the contracts. Lunch approached and Ian and I were deep into analyzing the base contract, Ian asked that Gayle bring lunch to us in the bedroom.
We added and subtracted several of the points, reworded things in the longest and driest possible manner, we made the contract as long and as boring as possible. Ian mentioned that the standard contract was 17 pages long, ours needed to be more than 100 pages of basically nothing. Late that afternoon we gave a copy to Hilda, Alejandro, and Julian to review.
Julian and Alejandro did just what Ian expected them to do, they scanned the headings and returned the contracts asking where the elaborate expectations for reimbursement were. Hilda took her time with the contract and was quite impressed with what we had done. Julian and Alejandro looked puzzled and picked up the contracts again. Both fell asleep reading them.
When they dozed off Ian did a happy dance and squealed “Success!” They both jerked awake. Hilda just shook her head and laughed.
The virginity contract was easy, we had successfully squashed the need for that contract. And he wrote a standard agreement to ascension. And the final contract was a standard provisions contract for renegotiation and transfer of ownership to marriage. All part of a hard day's work.
We all sat together for dinner it was nice. We had Salisbury steak, a garden salad, mashed potatoes with gravy, and seasoned green beans with key lime pie for dessert. I was starved. Finally, something more than jello and chicken broth.
After dinner Alejandro and Julian tried once again to get through the contracts and failed. Julian threw the contract on the table and gave up, “That is the most boring contract I have ever seen!” Alejandro followed suit, “We will just have to take your word for it.”
Hilda explained that there will only be three copies of the contract available for review at the auction and only a two-hour window to view the contract. It is routine that the bidders just scan over the points and ignore the vast details included. They only want to know the basic terms of the contract. Then they bid from there. “One time your grandfather bid on a contract that stated that we would have to pay the indigo an unreal sum if we ever bought a dog. Thank God we never bought one. From that point on I reviewed all of the contracts.”
Alejandro and Julian both picked the contracts back up and tried again. Rita and Hilda continued their game and Ian and I fell asleep watching a movie.
By morning Alejandro and Julian found our hidden agenda in the contract. He had to admit that he had to read it several times to understand it after he found it. “This is good, but what am I supposed to do?” Ian said, “Bid to win.”
Right after breakfast our plane landed at the private airstrip, we had come from more than a week earlier. The countdown to auction had begun. 6 hours and counting.
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