Grass Roots

by Stuart Woods

  Shocked and panicky, he fought to the surface again, sucking in air. Something, somebody was in the water with him, but he could see no one. What the hell was going on? He looked all around him, but there was nothing, not a bubble. Then, just as suddenly as before, somebody was crawling up his back. This time, though, he had a chance to grab some air. He turned and grabbed at a form that twisted away from him; then they both broke the surface, face to face.

  “Well, hi there,” she said, brushing strands of long blond hair from her face.

  It took him a moment. “Charlene!” he laughed, astonished. “Where the hell did you come from?”

  “Well, I got your message, and I was coming down to Delano anyway, so I thought I’d drop by. I got here about the time you took your running dive, and you couldn’t seem to hear me calling you, so I thought I’d just join you.” She reached out, grabbed him by the hair and dunked him with both hands.

  His face slid down her body, past her breasts, down a flat stomach, and over pubic hair before she vaulted over him and tried to swim away. He grabbed an ankle and pulled her down with him. They surfaced together, his hand on her bare waist, hers on his shoulders. He looked at her, gleaming wet, the outline of her breasts just beneath the water. Here they were, he thought, naked; the farm was deserted; just the two of them, alone; she and Larry Moody had broken up—Larry himself had said so. What the hell?

  “Why, Mr. Lee,” she laughed. “You look as though you just made a decision.”

  “I did,” he replied.

  “Hey, Will,” she said. She put her arms around his neck, pulled him close, and kissed him. Her mouth was soft and warm; her body, the full length of her, pressed against him. Her legs were clamped together around his penis, which had been erect since he had realized who was in the water with him. They sank for a moment, locked together; then she broke from him and swam back to the surface. “Is there a bed in that little house over there?” she asked.

  “There is,” he sputtered.

  “I’ll race you to it,” she said. She turned and made for the dock.

  He swam after her, but she was already out of the water, running for the cottage, by the time he made the dock. He pulled himself out and ran after her. She went through the front door and ran straight at the bed, diving toward it. He was right behind her.

  She grabbed at him, pulling him on top of her. “I want you right now,” she panted, “right this minute.”

  He tried to answer, but her mouth was clamped to his. They rolled about in the bed; his hands were on her breasts, then her buttocks; she found him and took him inside her. “Oh, God!” she sang out. “I want you, I want you!”

  “You’ve got me!” he yelled back, and proved it to her.

  In moments, they had both come, noisily, grandly, with abandon. They lay, locked together, wet from the lake and each other.

  “My goodness,” she panted, “you do know how to seduce a girl.”

  “Me? Seduce you?” He roared with laughter.

  “And make her happy, too,” she said.

  “Happy?” he asked. “Is that what this is? I thought it was better than happy.”

  “It’s going to be, Will.” She brushed his hair from his face. “That one was fast, and I wanted it that way. But this one is going to be slow.”

  “I don’t know if I can handle it right this minute,” Will said, beginning to get his breath.

  She rolled him onto his back and ran her tongue around his nipple. “Oh, you can,” she said, taking his testicles in her hand. “You just wait and see.”

  Will stroked her breasts, pinched a nipple softly. “You may be right,” he said.

  And she was. The next time took the better part of an hour.

  *

  As it got dark, they lay in bed, on fresh sheets, having showered together, and ate ice cream.

  “We sort of have this problem,” he said.

  “What?” she asked. “I’m on the pill, and I haven’t got any diseases. I just got a checkup.”

  “It’s Larry.”

  “Oh, him. We split a while back; I forget exactly when.”

  “Well, that helps, but the thing is, you’re an important witness, a critical witness, in a capital trial in which I’m defending.”

  “So?”

  “Well, it could be construed—by unkind persons such as the prosecuting attorney, the judge, or a jury—that I am attempting to influence your testimony.”

  “Is that what you’ve been doing? I thought you were fucking me. When I wasn’t fucking you, I mean.”

  “Yes, well, that apart, it is probably not the smartest thing in the world for you and me to be having a relationship of this sort, if you get my drift.”

  “Why? Didn’t you like it?”

  “Oh, boy, did I like it! Still, strictly speaking, this is not proper.”

  “I’m glad,” she said. “I hate proper. Nothing proper about me.”

  “It’s one of your charms.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Only one of your charms.”

  “Charms like what?” she asked.

  “Like this.”

  “Oooo. I like that.”

  “So do I. I like it a lot.”

  “Can I ask you a personal question?” she asked.

  “I don’t see why not. This is a pretty personal situation.”

  “Have you ever had a blow job from somebody who was just eating ice cream?”

  “I can’t say that I have ever been that lucky,” he replied weakly.

  She put down her ice cream dish. “Well, old sport,” she said, “your luck has just changed.”

  *

  At dawn, she went outside and found the clothes she had been wearing when she arrived. The shorts and cut-off T-shirt in her hand, she came back and sat on the edge of the bed. “Will, you incredible stud you,” she said, “I gotta be at work at eight. Morning shift.”

  “Am I an incredible stud?” he asked sleepily.

  “Are you ever,” she said, pulling the sheet from his body. “Just look at that. I do believe you’re waking up. You just lie still now.” She straddled him and took him inside her.

  “You’re wonderfully wet inside,” he said, sitting up and kissing her.

  “All your fault, bud.”

  He buried his face in her full breasts. “These are wonderful.”

  “Glad you like them.”

  “You’re wonderful all over.”

  “You’re not so bad yourself,” she said, beginning to breathe rapidly. “I’m coming.”

  “Me, too,” he panted.

  They held on to each other for a long moment before she gently pushed him back onto the bed. She brought him a damp towel and wiped his belly and his penis.

  “What a way to start the day,” he said.

  “You go back to sleep, bud.”

  “Charlene, before you go—”

  “Listen, Will, this was just grand; I was horny, you were horny, but I know you’re going to be pretty busy for a while. Don’t feel like you’ve got to call me up. I know you and me are from different places, and I’m not the kind of girl you take to the country-club dance.”

  “I think you’re terrific.”

  “I’m glad, but you don’t owe me a thing,” she said. “However, if you ever start feeling this way again, then I’d like it if you and I could just fuck ourselves silly. Can we leave it like that? That’s the way I’d like to leave it.”

  “Sure. If that’s what you want.”

  “That’s it. And you just relax about this trial thing. I know how to keep my mouth shut. I’ll be there to testify, and you didn’t change my testimony.” She stood up and slipped into her two small pieces of clothing. “You go back to sleep for a little bit,” she said, kissing him.

  “Goodbye, Charlene,” he said, in a long sigh.

  “Goodbye, Will. Until you want me again.”

  She left, and Will sank into a rosy haze of sleep.

  24

  Will arrived at t
he Atlanta headquarters on Monday morning light of step and of heart. He marveled at the transformation he felt in himself. Could an act of sex—well, several acts of sex—release some rejuvenative hormone into the bloodstream? Or was he simply feeling some primitive elation over a conquest? Not that the conquest had been his. Charlene puzzled him. Here was this perfectly beautiful girl, though country of manners and speech, who had it in her to seek out and seduce a man whom she barely knew, then describe their relationship dispassionately and without rancor, in a way that Will could never have brought himself to do, and say she was available for more whenever he wanted her. Why? Was she simply sexually overheated? Larry Moody had said as much; maybe it was an answer. Still, maybe she had been striking out at Larry. If so, he felt both fortunate to have been chosen as the means, and frightened at the thought that anyone but the two of them might ever learn about it.

  Tom Black looked at him, puzzled. “You must have had an awfully good day off,” he said.

  “An awfully good day off.” Will grinned. If Tom only knew.

  “Well, I’m happy to see you in such good spirits. I wish I felt as happy.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Money’s drying up, that’s what. Every day, our telephone bank is becoming less productive; we’ve had fundraisers at the homes of everyone who would help; we’ve been back to the well two or three times with some of our contributors, and I suspect they’re getting sick of us. What we need is a shot in the arm, something favorable that will impress enough people to refresh our sources. The debate helped, and a second debate might have helped more. Mack Dean was smart enough to know that; I think it was one of the reasons he canceled.”

  “Have you talked to my father about this?” Will asked.

  Tom nodded. “He’s beaten the bushes two or three times with his own network, too. What we need is Ben Carr out there stumping for us and putting the arm on people.”

  “That we’re not going to get,” Will said. “He’s made progress, I think; he can communicate in a minimal sort of way, but not enough even to give a press interview.”

  “There’s another thing,” Tom said. “Emma Carr has been making appearances at teas and fundraisers for Mack, saying her brother loves Mack and never trusted you.”

  “There’s not a hell of a lot we can do about Miss Emmy,” Will replied, “except maybe have her committed, and I’m not about to do that.”

  “It’s a pity we can’t,” Tom mused. “I’d put out a contract on the old biddy, if I thought I could get away with it.”

  Will laughed. “Don’t say that, even in jest. Suppose Mack had this place bugged.”

  Kitty Conroy came in bearing a bulky Federal Express envelope. “This just came, addressed to you, Will.”

  “Open it. Do we get many Federal Express deliveries around here?”

  “I can’t even remember one,” Tom said.

  Kitty pulled the string on the package, looked into it, then turned it upside down and shook the contents out onto Will’s desk. Several bundles of multicolored paper, secured with rubber bands, lay there.

  “What the hell?” Tom said, picking up one of the bundles.

  Kitty was fishing a single sheet of paper out of the envelope. “It’s a letter from Lurton Pitts,” she said, handing it to Will.

  Will looked at the letter.

  “Jesus, Will,” Tom said. “These are checks.”

  Will’s mouth fell open. “ ‘Dear Will,’ ” he read from the letter. “ ‘Our bunch was very impressed with you. We made a few phone calls to some of our acquaintances and rounded up the enclosed. Hope you will find it useful. Regards, Lurton.’ ” Will looked at the bundles. “How many do you think there are?” he asked.

  Tom and Kitty were stripping off the rubber bands and riffling through the checks.

  “There’s nothing here for less than five hundred dollars!” Tom said. “Most of them are for a thousand!”

  The three of them began sorting the checks into stacks by amount; then they counted each stack.

  “I don’t believe it,” Kitty said, looking at the pad before her. “I make it four hundred and ten thousand dollars!”

  “This can’t be legal,” Will said. “We’ve got to get this money back to Pitts before somebody finds out about it.”

  “The hell you say,” Tom crowed. “There’s not a check in here for more than a thousand dollars—that’s the individual legal limit. Each of these checks is from a different person. This is entirely legal and proper.”

  Will stared at the pile of checks. “This is impossible. This can’t be happening. There’s some sort of catch.”

  A campaign worker stepped into Will’s office. “Will, your father is on the phone.”

  Will punched a button and picked up the phone. “Good morning, Dad, how was your weekend?”

  “Never mind that,” Billy Lee replied. “How’s your morning going? If what I hear is true, it ought to be going great.”

  “You know about the package from Pitts?”

  “He just called me. He wanted to reassure me that every penny was raised in accordance with the campaign laws. He asks only that you don’t reveal that he or any of his group was behind it.”

  “We have to give a list of contributors to the campaign commission,” Will said.

  “That’s all right. Lurton and his friends will be down for only a thousand each.”

  “I’m still trying to think of something wrong with it,” Will said, shaking his head.

  “Boy, stop worrying about it, and start spending it!” Billy said goodbye and hung up.

  Will looked up at Tom. “It’s legal, proper, and okay, too. But only the three of us know who assembled all this. Pitts has demanded that we keep it to ourselves, and I don’t want it to go beyond this room, got that?”

  “Got it,” Tom and Kitty responded simultaneously.

  “Will,” Tom said.

  “Yes?”

  “We’ve got our TV campaign.”

  Will was fumbling in a desk drawer; he came up with some campaign stationery. “I think I’d better write Lurton Pitts a personal thank-you note. Get somebody started on the computer—I want an individual letter to each of these people over my signature.”

  “Will,” Kitty said, “your mama brought you up right.”

  “One more thing,” Will said, beginning to write. “Somebody get these checks into the bank immediately. It makes me nervous having all this money on the premises.”

  Kitty began raking bundles of checks back into the big envelope.

  25

  Will sat nervously with Tom Black, Kitty Conroy, and his parents in a small screening room that smelled of stale cigarette smoke; he stared at a large, blank television monitor and waited for something to appear on it.

  Will had just spent two days in a tiny studio down the corridor, staring into the lens of a camera and speaking to it as if it were a person. It had been a disconcerting experience; Tom had not allowed him to see himself on a monitor during all that time; he had been constantly patted on the face by an elderly woman with a sponge and a jar of makeup; and at no time had he been given anything to read from. Tom had forced him to talk about himself in a way he would never normally have done, until he spoke of his own accomplishments as if they were those of someone else. At the end of the time, he had been weary, hoarse, and disoriented. Now he was to see the result of his effort.

  The monitor flickered, and suddenly Will’s face appeared on the screen. It was alarmingly large and close, but Will was immediately aware of how beautifully it was lit.

  The voice of a professional announcer spoke. “Will Lee is running for the United States Senate, to represent Georgia. Here’s what he has to say about it.”

  Will, looking directly into the camera, began to speak; his voice was relaxed, natural, and richer than it ordinarily sounded to its owner. “For eight years now, I’ve been working for Senator Ben Carr in the United States Senate. I’ve done just about everything in his offi
ce. I’ve been his press secretary, his chief legislative assistant, and counsel to the committee he chairs, the Senate Intelligence Committee.” He permitted himself a small smile. “I’ve gone for a few cups of coffee in my time there, too.” Then he became more serious. “I’ve had the opportunity to learn, firsthand, from the man I believe to be Georgia’s—perhaps America’s—greatest senator in this century. And now, since Senator Carr can’t himself run again, I’m running to replace him—to the extent that anybody can replace Benjamin Carr. I want your vote, so that I can put my experience to work for you in the Senate. I think that experience qualifies me to do a better job than anybody else who’s running. I hope you think so, too.”

  A title came up: “Paid for by the Committee to Elect Will Lee.” The monitor went blank.

  Will found that he had been holding his breath; he released it.

  “That was fine,” Patricia Lee said.

  “Careful, everybody,” Will laughed, “that woman is a mother.”

  “She’s right, you know,” Kitty Conroy said.

  “I think it’s perfect,” Billy Lee chimed in. “You’ve done a magnificent job, Tom.”

  “Thanks,” Tom said. “We’ve got seven more one-minute spots.” He signaled for the technician to start the tape again.

  Will watched himself as the spots ran. It was an eerie experience; he felt both a participant and a detached viewer. By the time the spots had all run, he felt comfortable watching them, even liked them a little. “I feel too close to this to make any sort of rational judgment,” he said to no one in particular.

  “Let me tell you what I wanted to accomplish,” Tom said, “and you tell me if I got it right. Mack Dean’s stuff is all flag-waving and patriotic music; I wanted a sharp contrast to that. I wanted to keep the message simple, friendly, and believable; I think Will is a believable man, and I wanted that to come out. I framed the shot so closely because I wanted intimacy, too. One of the criticisms that has been made of Will is that he’s too cool, too hard to figure out, that his charm is superficial. I worked him until that went away, until I felt we were right down to the core of the man. In the beginning, he was stiff, was trying to project earnestness; in the end, he was relaxed, maybe even a little tired, and I like him that way.”