First-Person Fiction

This story gives us a look into the life of “Stephanie Reilly,” a surrogate president for a foreign ran company. Through out the story we see Stephanie slipping more and more into a hole of loneliness and despair. It is hinted at that She doesn’t have any close family and the only people she seems to surround herself with are Gigi, Lao Ting, Robbie, and the random men she meets at clubs. This lack of connection has obviously taken a toll on Stephanie as she is seen desperately trying to fill this empty void inside herself. She seeks out drugs, validation, and sexual exploitation to find some substance in her life. She is never known to have explicitly have sex in the story due to a genital mutation that causes abnormal pain and swelling of the vaginal area. I believe she holds a surplus of self hatred, and is ashamed of this reality. In a way, she may feel trapped in her physical body which is only disabling and painful for her.
The only time we find her coming out of herself and seeking actual validation from someone is after Lao Ting is pronounced dead. She seeks out a nineteen year old who she tells about her genitals and even allows to sleep on her couch. I believe this young man was just a “surrogate”, as the title indicates, for Stephanie’s misplaced emotions. She has lost one of the only people she considered family; Her safety. So she is now left to replace her feelings of emptiness and despair with men and drugs. These things she uses to fill the space are the surrogates for her own happiness in the story.