Chastity, after discussing it with Jack, had decided to let Jack do the talking on this one, but when the man mentioned lots of money, she perked up and asked (to Jack’s annoyance), “How much money?”
The man had demurred and passed them each a sheet of paper with an amount on it. “This is the general outline of the agreement,” he explained, but the teens didn’t exactly hear him; they were scanning for the number. Chastity found it first, and her jaw nearly fell off of her skull.
Jack found his voice first. “That’s a lot of money,” he said.
The man nodded, smiling at them in a manner that might have struck Chastity as slimy had she not been engrossed in staring at her sheet. The terms and conditions, as it were, of the deal was that they kept quiet about everything, a non-disclosure agreement of sorts. When they put their names at the bottom of the sheet, they then became the proud owners of fifty thousand dollars. Apiece. No questions asked. In movies or TV shows or books, the protagonist or protagonists might have immediately pressed for more money, but fifty grand was nothing for two suburban kids to sneeze at, particularly because none of their parents saw that much at any one time; they had to wait most of a year to get that sort of number. But now, there it was, all for them, just waiting.
“There is, of course, an added option at the bottom that you can check if you want,” the man added. Chastity looked first at the man and then back at her sheet; Jack didn’t even bother with that; he kept his attention on the sheet. “An option for Kimberly Clarke to contact you at a later time for further services,” he said. “Which, essentially means that since you two were actually of good help to us during the course of this week, we’d like to retain your names for future product testing. That is, of course, with your permission.”
“What sort of product testing?” Chastity asked, completely forgetting that she had agreed to let Jack talk. He looked mildly annoyed, but said nothing.
“Well, the notion is that you’ll be retained for this sort of testing due to the fact that you already have experience in it, and you can be relied upon to cooperate, in spite of,” the man paused and cleared his throat, “certain circumstances.”
Chastity nodded. “Sounds okay to me,” she said. “How about you?” she asked, looking at Jack.
He arched an eyebrow. “What, you think I want to do this again?” The silent look was all he got for an answer. “No. No, no, no, no, no, and that’s final.” He crossed his arms and looked at Chastity in defiance.
By the time the KC rep was on his way back from whence he came, he had both forms in his briefcase, completely filled out, signed, and dated by Jack and Chastity, complete with the little check box for retainer of services. Chastity hadn’t had to badger Jack very much to get him to check it; she knew which buttons to push without much trouble at all. The two teens went to pack up what few of their belongings had actually come out of their luggage, both of them placing their checks for fifty grand in very, very safe locations. Both of them received their final diaper changes from their respective nurses with no small amount of emotion on their parts, and they dressed as conservatively as possible in their own clothes. Mary let Chastity pick out a few pieces of clothing to take with her as souvenirs; she immediately put her onesie and sleeper, plus a pair of overalls into her bag, and when she had the chance a little later, she smuggled Jack’s onesie and sleeper into her bag as well. Jack had been given the same choice, but had (as predicted) opted to take nothing with him. That didn’t mean that Chastity wasn’t going to take anything for him, though, something Mary noticed but chose not to comment on.