She blinks up at me, a glimmer of what I think is admiration in her wise brown eyes. She sniffs and nods, wiping her nose and then nodding again. “Yes. Of course.”
“So this isn’t about those spirits that we opened up to a year ago,” I say. “This is about us. It’s about us realizing that it’s fucking hard to maintain a happy marriage and a fulfilling relationship when we’ve got responsibilities hitting us from all sides. This isn’t about us loving each other—hell, I love you more every fucking morning, even if my mind has to be on the White House briefings and whether or not North Korea has tested another missile or China is manipulating currency markets. This is about us being overwhelmed by the simple truth, the most basic fucking truth, a truth that we’re both terrified to admit, terrified to accept, terrified to reveal to the world that expects so much of us.”
“What truth?” Isa says, her tears dried already, her face regaining that cherubic glow that shone through the despair of my captivity a year ago, gave me a reason to live, to fight, to fucking win.
“The secret truth that there’s nothing more important to this President of the United States than his woman and family, his marriage and children,” I whisper as I feel myself open up in a way that makes me almost fucking cry again. And this time I’m opening up as a man, as a human, as a husband and lover, as . . . hers. Just hers. “I’d burn the world down before I give up on our relationship, you understand? And that fucking terrifies me, Isa. That’s the deepest fear of every warrior-spirit that rides with me as I face the job of Commander-in-Chief. That’s the conflict that lives in the darkest part of every man’s heart, every man’s soul, every man’s psyche. The conflict between his duty to the world and his obligation to his family. These broken souls that have given me strength never resolved that conflict, and that’s why they’re still here, still attached to the earthly plane, still . . .”
But then I trail off as a mystical, almost melancholy feeling sweeps through me like the desert wind. I cock my head and look off into the distance. Then I glance back into Isa’s eyes.
“Still what?”
“Never mind,” I say quietly. “I don’t know. Lost my train of thought.”
But I’m lying, and she fucking knows it. And that’s why she smiles and nods and nuzzles into me without pushing me for an answer.
She gets it.
She fucking gets it.
She gets what I only just realized, just managed to communicate after it’s been simmering in me for a year, creating an invisible wedge in our relationship, something that neither of us could come to terms with until we were forced into a crisis: That the conflict never gets resolved, that the battle between the outside and the inside is the battle of opposites that generates the energy that keeps a relationship alive, keeps a marriage alive, keeps the dream alive . . .
And like that desert breeze moving through the infinite dunes, I feel those spirits suddenly release and then slowly drift off as my own realization becomes theirs, as they’re finally free to move on, finally free of the chains holding them here, freed from their own conflict by understanding that in a fucked up way it’s the chains that make us free!
And I hug my wife like I never want to let go, like she’s a chain that’s set me free, free forever, free and in her arms, the arms of my forever.
13
ISA
His arms are holding me tighter than ever before, but it feels gentler, more tender, like this crazy outburst which had both of us breaking down in the privacy of the White House bedroom was a cathartic release of some kind.
I shudder from the wrenching emotion that racked my body, and Irving’s warm kiss is all I want, all I need, all I crave. Just a kiss. One kiss.
And he gives it to me, a kiss so warm and beautiful it makes me want to cry again. This is the warmth I’ve been yearning for, the tenderness I’ve been missing, the gentleness of a powerful man taking a strong woman without the need to use his power, without demanding her to use every ounce of her strength just to handle his need. Of course there’s a place for that kind of wildness—oh, God, there’s a place for that!
“But this . . .” I whisper through a trembling smile as Irving breaks from the kiss long enough to slowly pull the sheets away from my bare breasts. “This is good. I like this too. I need this too.”
I’m babbling half-sentences, I know, but Irving nods like he understands, smiling at my tear streaked face as he gently massages my aching, swollen nipples before laying me down on our soft bed. It’s warm and cozy in here, and soon the sheets are on the floorboards and the President’s face is between my thighs, his tongue getting me warm and wet slowly and with love, his strong hands firmly gripping my thick thighs as I come for him quickly, all over his face with a suddenness that almost embarrasses me.
“Oh, shit, I’m sorry!” I gasp, covering my reddening face and looking down at my grinning husband, his face wet from my juices.
But I’m not sorry. Not one damned bit.
Because even though I felt those violent spirits get released from Irving after that intimate, deeply emotional moment we just shared, those other spirits that I let into me are still here.
And I have no intention of letting them go, I decide as I lick my lips and feel my husband slip out of his Presidential pajamas and line up his Washington-Monument of a cock with the most powerful cunt in the free world. Nope. Not kicking them out yet.
A chill goes through me, but it’s a warm sort of chill, like those spirits are giggling inside somewhere, like they know that even between lovers there’s conflict and competition, even a marriage is a battleground, that you have to keep fighting for your forever even after you get it . . .
I sigh as I feel my forever drive deep into me and flex, and I sigh again as my body opens up and takes him, my legs wrap around his hips.
Shit, who knew this would be my forever, I think with a third, secret sigh as the President comes inside me, as my husband comes inside me, as my man comes inside me.
WE knew! comes the whisper from that chorus of beings that are part of me now, part of my own conflict, my own private battle, a battle that every wife, every girlfriend, every baby-mama, every woman has to fight on her own, in secret, away from the eyes of the world, from the eyes of even her own husband.
And it’s a different sort of battle than the one my man has to live with, I think as I moan and whimper as Irving pulls out and then collapses on me, breathing hard and heavy like a wolf after the hunt. He’s got to live with the conflict between the demands of the outside world and his private need to retreat to the warmth and comfort of his woman and family, and while as First Lady I have the same conflicts between the outside and the inside worlds, I also have to handle the eternal conflict that lives inside a woman . . .
The conflict between being a mother and a wife.
The conflict of being a nurturer and an enforcer.
And the most primal conflict of all, the most feminine of all, the conflict that comes straight from the divine goddess, the conflict that is the divine goddess:
It’s the oldest battle of the feminine in us, the battle between the Madonna and the whore that swirls through us all like the breeze, invisible but real . . .
Just like air . . .
Just like light . . .
Just like always . . .
Just like forever.
EPILOGUE
ONE YEAR LATER
IRVING
“I’ll hunt you down even if it takes me forever,” I whisper to the masked men standing before me. “And I don’t mean the Secret Service or the Navy Seals are gonna hunt you down. I mean me, personally. You need to think very fucking carefully before proceeding.”
The men chuckle behind their black masks, and I shake my head as I test my bonds. I’ve been President for three years, and after Isa and I turned a corner in our relationship last year things have flourished. I eased back on the rampant militancy and warmongering, while still holding to my firm be
lief that every American can benefit from the sort of mental and physical discipline that we give to our volunteer military. I’m close to pushing through a measure that would require every eighteen-year-old American citizen to go through one year of non-combat military service just like the long-standing traditions in countries like Switzerland and Israel. It’s a middle ground that’s acceptable to both the Left and the Right, and it’s been sending my re-election numbers skyrocketing.
And then these fucking jokers popped out of the woodwork.
I shake my head again as I try to tell myself that these “jokers” just managed to kidnap the President of the United States—something that’s never happened! Of course, it couldn’t have happened without help from the inside, and I can’t help but think back to my experience three years ago. Back then I was certain those guys had been hired by a secretive faction in the U.S. Government, one of those cliques of nameless men who consider themselves rather than the voting public the true gatekeepers of our great nation. And this makes me only more certain. Those secret cliques are as old as America, and they’re like a fungus or mold, insidious and impossible to fully root out.
If they wanted me dead I’d be dead by now, I think as I try to figure out what’s about to happen. This isn’t a straight-up assassination—not yet, at least. Maybe they’re trying to start a war by having me killed and making it look like it’s Russia or North Korea. Or maybe it is Russian or North Korea.
There are a hundred fucking options, but I’m not concerned in the least, not worried in the slightest. There isn’t a sliver of doubt in me, not a fucking hint of fear. Been here, done that. You guys wanna be famous? I’ll make you famous, motherfuckers.
I smile and close my eyes, my mind opening up as I feel my psychic doorways swing open at my command. Over the past three years Isa has taught me everything she knows, showing me how we can open and close those doors, how we can use spirits just like they use us, how the two worlds are constantly in a state of interaction, are intertwined, with energy passing back and forth.
The air goes still and cold around me, and I smile again as I feel those old souls respond to my psychic call, return to me from the warmth of their homes in the heavens, where they’ve mastered their own worlds now and can come and go with the freedom they have as spirits.
And as their power fills me again just like it did three years ago, flowing through my muscles and sinews, heating up my warrior blood that never truly got cold, I feel my bonds snap quietly as I clench my fists and shake my head at the sad fate of these poor fools.
And just before I leap at their throats like an eagle in flight, I see my curvy goddess shimmering in the background.
But this time she doesn’t have a look of disapproval.
This time she’s with me, nodding and winking as I launch my body at these faceless goons with the fury of a thousand warrior souls.
This time she’s by my side.
This time and for all time.
In this world and the next.
Always and forever.
Curvy for Him: The Psychic and the Senator (Curvy for Him Series Book 9) Page 6