by Lynn Faye
I tightened my thighs again. That wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear. I couldn’t be his assistant anymore; it held no future for me at all. As his assistant I would always be talked about and looked down on. I needed something more. I needed a position that set me up as his equal and not as someone less than him.
“Yes,” I said firmly. “I want to be your chief of staff. Hire a new assistant.”
Matthew smiled at the revelation that I didn’t want to leave him, but instead I wanted to be more involved in his political future. Phillip and Alex had both left him and instead of moving me into their positions, Matthew had made me some sort of glorified secretary to him. That wasn’t at all what I wanted. I needed more power if I was going to continue to work with Matthew and I needed more legitimacy if I was going to put my face out there as his girlfriend.
People were already talking about me, why not give them something to really talk about. I’d move into his chief of staff position and then I could make the political name for myself that I wanted to. Especially if we were able to get Matthew into the White House; then everyone would have to pay attention to my work.
“Ok,” Matthew said as he grabbed both of my legs and spread them wide.
His thrusts came quick and hard after that and I did my best not to scream out in pleasure since we were still at work. But my body shook as the delight of his thrusts hit just the right spot.
I grabbed him and pulled him down on top of me as we kissed passionately. I knew at that moment that Matthew and I were meant for each other. Whatever we planned for the future, it was going to have to include both of us. Together we could be a power couple in Washington; we could show everyone that we were a power not to be reckoned with.
Matthew’s phone rang and I let him go so he could answer it. I watched his face as it went quickly into concern. As I got dressed, I continue to watch Matthew and looked for a clue to what was going on. He gave me nothing, only a slight look of concern that appeared not to fade at all during his conversation.
“The embassy in Iraq was bombed, there were casualties. I’m going to meet with the President right now.”
“We are going,” I added as I swept my hair back up into a bun.
“Kayla, it’s going to get dirty. I’m not going to get moved into the VP position without some dirt. If you come with me, you need to understand this.”
I knew very well just how ugly Matthew was willing to get to make his way into the White House. I wasn’t afraid of ugly anymore. I wanted the power and I was going to help Matthew get where he needed to be. I certainly could handle hearing him sling some dirt about the Senate Arms Committee and any other groups that he wanted to throw out there to make himself look better. That was politics.
“I’m coming,” I said firmly as I gathered my things. “I’m not afraid of dirt anymore.”
Matthew looked at me and a flash of admiration came across his face. At that moment I knew that he didn’t see me as someone he could use anymore; he saw me as someone he could partner with.
The ride over to the White House was a quiet one. Things were weird between Matthew and me, that was for sure. I despised what he had done at the airport, but I wasn’t going to let him stay in control of things. Then we had slept together so any anger I had toward him was all but disappeared by the time we arrived to the White House.
We went through security and then made our way to the oval office to sit down with the President. I didn’t know what I should do, I wanted to be there but I didn’t think it was best for me to actually go into the oval office unless I was invited.
My heart pounded as we walked down the hallways. It was different than when we were at the White House for the dance. This was serious business. People had died earlier in the day at the Embassy bombing, there would be no fun and games at the White House on that day.
“I’ll stay out here,” I said to Matthew as we approached the door.
I had wanted to come to the White House so I could stay involved, but I didn’t have the skills necessary to understand all the international issues that were going on. There were political experts that would give their feedback as to what should be done next; nothing I could say or do would contribute to the situation at all.
I probably shouldn’t have gone with Matthew to the White House, but I was happy I had. Even sitting outside of the oval office was more than I had thought I would ever get to do.
When I came to Washington D.C., I thought it would take me years to get into the position I was in at that moment. Of course, I didn’t think that I would end up falling for my boss and sleeping with him.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was only in the position I was in because I had slept with Matthew. My mind kept thinking about what things would be like for me if I hadn’t slept with Matthew. But it was over with now. Things were the way they were and I needed to move forward.
My hands shook as I sat outside the oval office. I couldn’t tell who all was in the office when Matthew had gone in there, but I thought I had seen Senator Masson.
No matter what political things were going on, everyone was willing to come together in an emergency. I liked that they could set aside their individual issues at least for a short period of time while they stabilized a dangerous situation.
The secretary watched me as I strained to try and hear what was going on in the room. But there was no way to hear anything, the walls were built for privacy; that was for sure.
The meeting only lasted about 30 minutes and when Matthew came out of the office, he motioned for me to follow him. Senator Masson was right behind him and Matthew looked angry. His steps were quick and he continued out the front door without even looking back at me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as we waited for our car to pull up.
“Not here.”
“Alright, then tell me about the bombing. What do we know so far?”
“Local militants, not much we can do. Sounds like we had six casualties and six injuries. They have the situation under control, but the media has some other issues they have raised already.”
“Like what?” I asked as we got into the back seat of the SUV.
“Apparently the Secretary of State had a warning about the attacks and he didn’t follow up on it. The media is going to eat it up.”
I sat quietly as I tried to understand everything that was going on. I wanted to know more about the situation, but I didn’t want to look stupid. Obviously something hadn’t gone as Matthew had planned in the meeting. I really just wanted to know what part of it that was and how we needed to react so we could move forward.
“We are going back to the office,” Matthew said as he grabbed my had and squeezed it.
The moment felt so genuine and real that it took me by surprise. I was confused by Matthew; utterly and completely confused by him. One minute he was throwing my whole political career out into the wind and the next he was bringing me with him to the White House. He was not worried about me at all, but then he touched my hand like he actually cared about me.
I didn’t expect a clear definition between the good Matthew and the evil version of him. But I really did want more clarity about which Matthew was the real one.
Which version of Matthew was the one I had met in Illinois? If I could get that version of him all of the time there would be no stopping me. Unfortunately, I didn’t think the Matthew I had met in Illinois even existed anymore.
***
“It’s all over the news,” Steven said as we walked in.
Matthew went straight over to the television and stood in front of it as both Senator Masson and Rod Stillwater were totally crucified in the media. The newscaster talked about the huge lack of security and how those two men were even more responsible for it than the president.
“The President can’t save everyone. We have these other people so they can do their jobs. But since that isn’t happening it’s time for our leader to lead. Get rid of the dead weight mister President.”
Matthew
just smiled and made his way back to his office. I started to follow him, but he shut his door so I left him alone.
Things were turned upside down and I needed some time to wrap my brain around everything. It had been one of the longest days I had ever had at work and all I could think about was heading back to my apartment and getting some sleep.
I felt better about everything and I was ready to move forward. I didn’t even care how I moved forward, I just knew that the times were changing very quickly and I needed to stay with the change and ride it out. My plan was to make it to the next wave and I knew that Matthew was going to be y key to that next situation for me.
I didn’t wait for Matthew to open his door when it was time for me to leave. Instead, I just knocked and peeked my head into his office.
“I’m exhausted, I’m heading home. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said as I smiled at Matthew.
He was intently examining a large stack of papers and hardly looked up to acknowledge that I was even in the room. His pile of work seemed huge, but I wasn’t about to offer to help him. I needed sleep and that was exactly what I was going to do.
“Goodnight,” Matthew said as he went right back to work.
A feeling of disappointment flowed through my body but I wasn’t exactly sure why. I was tired and I needed sleep so I certainly didn’t need Matthew coming home with me or anything like that.
I turned and left the office and made my way across the street to my apartment. There was a police car that zipped pass me and I started to think about the Vice President and what might have happened to him.
When Matthew was in front of me I had such a hard time thinking that he could have done anything to hard the Vice President. But when I was away from Matthew, the idea that he was somehow involved in the Vice President going missing, well that scared the crap out of me.
Matthew hadn’t seemed worried at all that the Vice President was even missing. He didn’t seem to care and I had to wonder if he had something to do with it. My gut was telling me that he must have been involved. I didn’t know how or to what extent but I felt like Matthew had been involved in the VP’s disappearance.
The other thing that I wanted to know about was why Matthew had been so upset when we left the White House. It was odd because Matthew could control his emotions so well when he was around other Senators. I couldn’t figure out what could have bothered him so much that he had started to lose his temper.
I called Matthew on a whim and the second it started to ring I wanted to hang up, but then Matthew answered the phone.
“What’s up?” He asked curtly.
“Why were you upset at the White House?”
There was a pause and I could tell Matthew was contemplating how much information he wanted to tell me. But I was his chief of staff now, he needed to share what was going on so I could help him.
“The President wants Masson for the VP position.”
“Even with all the controversy regarding the Senate Arms Committee?” I said in surprise.
“Yes.”
“So what can we do? More scrutiny of his committee? Does he have a girlfriend or lover? We could throw some information to the press and see what sticks.”
Another long pause and I waited for Matthew to answer me.
“I’m coming over,” he said and then hung up the phone.
I couldn’t tell from his tone of voice if he was upset with me or if he just wanted to talk more privately than our cell phones would allow. But I quickly changed into my sweatpants and pulled my hair up into a ponytail. I wanted to be ready for bed the second our conversation was completed.
His knock came on the door only about ten minutes after we hung up the phone. When I opened it I was absolutely not prepared for what happened next.
Matthew walked into my apartment and shut the door behind him. He grabbed my hand and brought me straight to the bathroom and turned the shower on. Slowly he took my clothes off, but he didn’t say a single word.
“What are we doing?” I asked him.
He put his finger up to his lips to signify for me to be quiet. I obliged and didn’t say anything as I watched him take his clothes off as well.
He pulled me with him as we stepped into the warm shower and I still had no idea what was going on. His look was intense, not like the one I was use to seeing when he wanted to have my body. This look was something much more serious.
“We can’t talk about this stuff on the cells phones and your apartment could even be bugged. We need to remember that at any time we could be under surveillance.”
I laughed at first because I thought he was joking. Did Matthew really think that we were being listened to? It seemed a little farfetched. There were so many more important people in the world I doubted anyone would want to hear our conversations. But I stopped laughing when I saw that Matthew didn’t think it was funny at all. Matthew was dead serious about his concern for being monitored.
“At the White House, I felt unease. Maybe it was just the news about the two of us. Or maybe it was just the bombing; but I didn’t feel comfortable at all. Plus Masson and the President were way too cozy for my good.”
I didn’t bat an eye at his comments. They all were probably very true, but it wasn’t something that we could control.
“Why are they going with Masson?” I asked in an effort to change the subject.
“I’m not sure they are, but it sounded like they were. Masson has a long history, he’s old and people trust him. But he’s not the best one for the job. We need to find out if he really embezzled from the Senate Arms Committee or not.”
“I really thought you already knew that,” I said with a giggle.
“No, I set up the publicity to make it look like he had been involved in something sinister, but I guess they are finding more and more information that is showing someone on the committee was actually embezzling.”
“What else do we need to do? How can we get you into the VP position?”
“Senator Masson has a plethora of women in his history, we could start pulling them out and see if we can get some traction on that with the media. But I need something fast. I need to know that he’s got too much negative publicity for him to even be considered.”
I thought about it for a moment as I let the warm water run over my body. There was no reason not to enjoy the hot shower while we were talking about our political future.
“A man,” I said with a grin. “We can leak that his affair was with a man.”
Matthew grabbed me and pulled me under the water with him and started to kiss me. His kiss was passionately filled and I could hardly pull myself away. I liked it when Matthew was like that. I liked when his passion filled the room we were in.
“I fucking love you,” Matthew said and he continued to kiss me.
“Love?” I said skeptically.
“Yes, I’m not afraid to say it. I don’t know what our future will bring, but you just officially won me over with your reaction to all this publicity. You get me, you get that we might have to do things that we aren’t one hundred percent proud of. But we are only doing them for the greater good.”
“I understand sacrificing one thing for another. It’s collateral damage in the real world. You don’t need to be in a war setting to feel the effects of collateral damage.”
Matthew looked at me and I felt his eyes penetrate through me. Quickly he flipped off the shower and grabbed my soaking wet hand and pulled me over to the bed.
“Collateral damage?” Matthew said as he appeared to not understand what I was trying to say.
“Yes, when you hurt someone or something that is not intended to be hurt.”
Matthew smiled as his wet body pressed up against me. It felt weird and unusual to be in bed and be soaking wet. I liked the feeling, even though the air on my skin had me shivering within moments.
“I’m glad you understand about collateral damage,” Matthew said as he kissed me.
“Yes, and I’m sorry, but y
ou might be collateral damage on my way to be the first female President.”
I tried to keep a straight face but I broke down and started to laugh. I didn’t want to be President. I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted for my career in Washington, all I knew was that I didn’t want to do anything without Matthew by my side.
No matter what was going on between us, we were a good team and I wanted to keep that intact as much as possible.
“I might be collateral damage?” Matthew asked as he laughed.
“Yep.”
“I’ll be your collateral damage anytime.”
As our bodies slid together, I felt a new closeness to Matthew. Our life was about to be forever intertwined into the history books. We were going to be one of the most memorable political couples the United States had ever seen. If only I could figure out what our next step should be.
We made love like we hadn’t done in what seemed like a very long time. I could hear his phone ringing from the bathroom, but neither of us were about to stop our pleasure to go check it. The ringing continued over and over again until we had finished with a glorious erotic explosion and Matthew finally decided to get up and see who wanted him.
“Oh, my God,” Matthew said as a look of shock crossed his face.
“What is it?”
“He’s dead. The Vice President is dead.”
I was instantly confused. I really had thought that Matthew had had something to do with the Vice President disappearing. But the look on his face appeared really genuine as Matthew stared at his phone and sat down on the bed.
“Dead? What did you think had happened to him?”
I tried to ask the question in as easy terms as I could will out accusing Matthew of anything. Matthew just held his finger up to his mouth to indicate we couldn’t talk there.
“I don’t know, I thought he ran off with a girlfriend or something like that,” Matthew said.
“Oh, well that’s horrible that he’s dead. Now what?”
I couldn’t tell if we were talking for real or making up some wear conversation just so someone listening would have a full conversation to report. I was baffled though because I had genuinely thought Matthew had been involved.