Conservative Affairs

by Scott, Riley

  “I was saying that you’re…”

  The doorbell rang, interrupting a thought that Madeline desperately wanted to hear.

  “Are you expecting anyone?” Madeline pointed toward the door.

  “Just the strippers.” Jo laughed.

  Madeline shook her head. As Jo went to answer the door, she entertained herself with the thought of watching Jo strip. That would be one hell of a show. Silently she scolded herself. This was wrong on so many levels. Jo wasn’t only off limits because she was a woman; she was also an employee…

  Jo peered through the peephole. “It’s Gabe,” she said to Madeline.

  “Jo?” Gabe called through the door. “Who are you talking to?”

  She unlocked the door and opened it.

  “Hi, Gabe,” she said. “Is everything okay?”

  “May I come inside?” He held out a bottle of wine, as if paying a cover charge to get inside a club.

  “Oh, of course, I’m sorry. Come on in.”

  He stepped inside, then noticed Madeline on the couch. “Oh, hello, Mayor Stratton.”

  Madeline had to smile. Gabe looked like an uncomfortable schoolboy going through that awkward pubescent phase. “Hello, Gabriel. How are you doing tonight?”

  “I’m doing well, and yourself?”

  “I’m just fine, thank you.” She enjoyed Gabe’s company most days at the office, and he was a nice young man. Most importantly, he was very good at his job. Unlike with Jo, though, she did not feel as if she could simply let loose in front of Gabe. Having him here made her acutely aware that she was wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt from some beach in Florida. Which belonged to Jo. They had somehow forgotten to grab anything for Madeline to wear to bed in their earlier rush at the house.

  The silence had grown past awkward when Jo spoke. “So what brings you out this way tonight, Gabe?”

  “I was just…uh…checking to see how you were doing. I knew you had been with Mayor Stratton today, and I wanted to see how she was doing as well, so I guess I was checking on both of you.”

  Madeline had never seen him act so nervous. He clearly was not himself around Jo. She had watched them interact in the office and thought that they would make a cute couple, but now she knew otherwise. It would be just like it was with her and John.

  “Thank you, Gabe. That is awfully sweet of you,” Jo said, giving him a hug. “I really do appreciate it. I’m doing well, and Mad—Mayor Stratton is doing well too.”

  Jo had almost slipped and called her by her first name, which had somehow become taboo among the staff. They all called her Madeline when she wasn’t around, she knew, so she had no idea why it was such a big deal when she was in the room.

  “Well, that’s good. I’m glad to hear it. Anyway, I just wanted to bring you a bottle of wine to say thank you for all of your hard work. Will I be seeing you tomorrow?”

  “Yes, I’ll be coming into the office tomorrow,” Jo said.

  “Me too,” Madeline chimed in.

  “That’s great,” Gabe said. “I’ve canceled all of your meetings for tomorrow, but we can figure something out if you want.”

  “No,” she said, waving her hand in the air. “I’m not sure I’ll stay all day, but it will be good to get back into the swing of things.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Gabe replied. “I’ll let you two get back to your night. I just wanted to stop by and make sure you were doing all right.”

  “Don’t you want to stay for a glass of wine?” Jo extended the invitation, even though Madeline could tell she would rather go back to the couch and finish their discussion.

  “No. Thank you, though. I’m going to go home and get some sleep.”

  “Oh, okay. Well, thank you,” Jo said. She showed him to the door.

  “You two have a good night, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  After he left, Madeline smiled at Jo. “You know he is interested in you, right?”

  Jo nodded. “He is pretty hard to ignore. He gets me coffee, compliments anything I wear and has almost asked me out about seventy different times.”

  “It must be awful,” Madeline joked.

  “No, of course it’s not awful,” Jo said, laughing. “It is flattering, and Gabe is a sweetheart. He’s just not my type.” Her smile grew. “He is a little on the masculine side for my tastes.”

  “Poor Gabe,” Madeline teased. “He doesn’t have a clue that you prefer sex with women.”

  Madeline enjoyed seeing the flicker of arousal that danced in Jo’s eyes after hearing Madeline use the word “sex.”

  She was wet and tense, and she had a feeling Jo was too.

  Chapter Eleven

  The sheets were rumpled when he woke, but it was still dark outside. John Stratton glanced at the bedside clock, trying to get his bearings. It was only eleven p.m.

  He shook his head, as if to clear the fuzziness there. Memories began to trickle back in as he lit a cigarette. He used the flame from the lighter to survey his dumpy hotel room, then snapped it shut. He could have found a classier place to stay, but he hadn’t wanted to alert the media. In fact, all he wanted for the next little while was to lay low.

  The day the news cameras had captured him leading that little blond up to a fancy hotel had been the day that his life fell apart. Publicly at least. The day that his life actually fell apart had been years ago, but no one else had been privy to that—no one except for Maddie, and he knew she would not have told a single soul.

  Here he was, hiding out from anyone who might delve deeper into the story, who might ask too many questions.

  John knew the reality. If all his sins were publicly displayed, he would lose out on the one thing that had kept him by Maddie’s side, playing second fiddle to the woman in the spotlight, all those years. He took a drag of his cigarette. Unfortunately, it did nothing to alleviate the pain in his head. Apparently, when you got drunk during the day and passed out before six in the evening, hangovers did not fade quickly. It was a lesson he had learned over the past couple of days.

  Exhaling the smoke, John decided to see if a shower would clear his head. He had a lot to figure out, and he was not about to sit idly by while his future went up in flames.

  In the shower, he began to replay his current predicament in his head.

  Maddie’s maiden name was Carmichael, meaning that she was loaded. The very first time he laid eyes on her, he knew that she was a rich girl. It was evident in everything she did, the ski trips, the European vacations, the summer home she mentioned down on the beach. It was also all too evident in how she carried herself, how she dressed, and the elegant ease with which she spoke.

  From day one, it was apparent that underneath the wild party girl front she put on for all to see, Madeline Carmichael was all class. Her wealth was not what had drawn John to her in the beginning, however. She was smart and witty and a bombshell to boot.

  During his senior year of college, they had met at a frat party. He had drank most of a keg by himself. Maddie was clearly drunk as well. Even half in the bag, she was stunning.

  Her blue eyes shimmered underneath the lights, and her perfect figure tantalized his senses. That deep laugh kept him guessing, and when she slid one of those soft hands down his arm, he was hooked. She hadn’t needed to say anything or do anything more. He was already hers. At that point, he would have done anything she asked.

  When she said she was going to call it a night and go home, John had offered to walk her. It was dark and almost a mile back to her dorm room; he thought he would impress her with a display of chivalry.

  “A pretty little thing like you shouldn’t be out walking alone,” he told her with a smile.

  Maddie gave him a once-over. “So does that make you my bodyguard?” she had said with a laugh.

  “That’s me,” John said, flexing his muscles, thankful that he had been hitting the weight room as hard as he had been for football.

  “Okay,” she agreed. “Let’s go. I’m getting tired.”

/>   On the way out, some of his frat buddies tried to give him high fives. Under normal circumstances, he would have played along. But that night was different. He shook his head at them, signaling that this girl was different; she deserved respect.

  The night was brisk, but not too cold. Even so, Madeline shivered with the chill of the wind. So he offered her his jacket. John couldn’t help but think how great she looked in it.

  “So tell me a little about yourself,” he said.

  “I don’t just spill my information to anyone,” Madeline teased. “I’m not that easy.”

  “No…” John stammered. “I…I didn’t say you were easy.”

  “Oh yeah? Isn’t that what your friends think?” She changed her voice to impersonate a college boy. “There goes John out the door with that hot little blond. You know he is going to get laid tonight.”

  She had smiled as she said the words, but her self-doubt was evident.

  “It’s not like that,” John insisted. “I genuinely want to get to know you, Madeline.”

  “Call me Maddie,” she said.

  “Okay, well, Maddie, it’s not like that. I’m not out here looking to get laid, as you put it. I offered to walk you home, because…well…I’d like to take you out sometime. Maybe we could grab dinner or a movie or just take another walk sometime?”

  Madeline took off his jacket then, much to John’s dismay. She handed it to him. “Here, I don’t need this right now.”

  “Aren’t you still cold?”

  “Maybe.” Madeline’s sassy nature was showing through more and more with each minute. “But I don’t need it right now.”

  With the ease of a seasoned stripper, Madeline had begun to unbutton her shirt and dance around him. She pushed him back in the grass.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, knowing he sounded like an idiot, but, after all, they were in public.

  A drunken group of kids passed by, not noticing John and Maddie on the grass in front of the school library.

  “Just sit there, and shut up,” she whispered.

  She continued her striptease, further captivating him.

  Before he could say anything else, she was completely naked, reaching into his pants and mounting him. “I thought you said you weren’t looking to get laid tonight. It sure looks like you want to.” Her voice was velvet.

  John couldn’t resist. He flipped her over in the grass, and they had sex right there on the front lawn of the library. When they were finished, John was sure of one thing—he was falling in love with Maddie Carmichael. She dressed quickly and began to walk away.

  “Wait,” he called, fumbling with the buckle of his belt.

  She turned halfway. Even then, he could tell, it was as noncommittal a move for her as the sex had been. “It was nice to meet you, John,” she called. Waving, she turned and left him sitting there.

  From that day on, he had been obsessed. He called, brought her flowers and asked her out several times. Each time she told him she wasn’t ready for anything serious. She was unattainable, and that made him want her more.

  They met up at a few parties and each time found their way to a bathroom, a closet or a secluded area and fucked. After which she again would leave him. The routine left John heartsick. He wanted to be more than Maddie’s hookup. He wanted to be the only one she was seeing.

  Finally she had relented. He asked her to dinner, and she agreed to go. In time, they began dating seriously. John was in love. Maddie, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy his friendship but appeared disinterested in anything more.

  After a year John decided to take the leap. He asked Maddie to marry him. He could sense that she wasn’t ready, but she said yes. Looking back, he saw that she had been following some sort of path. It seemed like the right thing to do, marrying John, so she had done it.

  Had he always been a move made out of some sense of obligation? He wasn’t sure, but he did know Maddie had never truly been attracted to him.

  He had had his pick of girls in college. He was on the football team, had the looks of a model. Even now, he could score with most women. That’s why he was in this mess.

  No, he reminded himself, the reason he was in this mess was because of Maddie. Because even though she loved him, she didn’t want him.

  They had just finished having sex. Once again, Maddie had faked an orgasm and rolled over to go to sleep. He could tell when they were fake, which was most of the time. She never seemed to be actually enjoying sex with him. Maybe she never had.

  “Was it good for you?” he finally worked up the courage to ask.

  “Baby, of course it was good,” she said reassuringly, patting him on the shoulder. “Good night,” she added.

  “Maddie, wait. Do you enjoy having sex with me or don’t you?”

  Maddie sighed. “Yes, I do. It was good. It’s always good.” Her voice revealed her lack of interest.

  “Then why do you fake orgasms? Why don’t you let me keep going until I can get you off?”

  She sat up in bed, realizing he was not going to let her get away with the lies tonight. “Fine, sometimes I fake it.”

  “How many times?” he asked, emboldened by her confession.

  “I don’t know, baby.” Her voice was little more than a whine now, begging him to drop the subject.

  “Fine. Maybe this will be an easier question to answer. How many times have I actually made you orgasm?”

  She opened her mouth but didn’t reply. “I want to go to sleep,” she finally said.

  “Shit! Not once?” He felt like he had been slapped across the face.

  She sighed again. “It’s not you, John. I swear it’s not.”

  “What is it then? Is it some kind of condition where you just can’t enjoy sex?”

  “No,” she began carefully. “If I admit something to you, you promise not to tell anyone else?”

  “We’re grown-ups. Husband and wife. We don’t have to pinkie swear. What we say is kept between us.”

  “Right,” she said. “Okay, well, I’m still adjusting to the whole sex thing again.”

  “We’ve been having sex for almost two years now. What more is there to adjust to?”

  “Well, it’s just that before you…”

  He didn’t let her finish. “I know you weren’t a virgin that night, Maddie. So what the hell are you trying to say?”

  “Let me finish, dammit! Before you, I hadn’t been with a man in a couple of years.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” he shot back. “You weren’t much of a prude when you spread your legs for me on the front lawn the first night we met.”

  The accusation should have infuriated her, but she didn’t show any sign that the insult had struck a chord.

  “I wasn’t,” she had explained. “I just said I hadn’t been with a man.”

  This time he heard the special emphasis she placed on the word “man,” but he still had to ask. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I slept with a woman for a while and that with you I was trying to adjust to being with a man for the first time. It’s not the easiest transition in the world, and even though we’ve been together all this time, sometimes it’s still strange to me. So would you please drop it? I enjoy the intimacy of having sex with you, just like I enjoy knowing that I arouse you. I make sure you get off whenever you want to. Back off and give me some time to sort through everything I’m feeling—everything I’ve felt—and it’ll all be okay.”

  With that, she had rolled over to go to sleep. He had never brought up the subject again. Not with her, anyway. Behind the scenes, he had done his own detective work. Old college friends of hers were hesitant to share any details, out of a surprisingly fierce loyalty to Maddie, but he finally got enough liquor in one during an outing and got her to give him a name. That was all he had needed. From there, it hadn’t been hard to find out more—to find out that the fling Maddie spoke of had been a loving and committed—albeit hush-hush—affair for quite some time.


  For years, it had haunted him. There was always something else on Maddie’s mind or perhaps someone else. She never did seem to snap out of it. During their entire marriage, she had only a few orgasms, and they always occurred under similar circumstances—when he was licking her and she had her eyes closed.

  As the years passed, she didn’t even try to fake orgasms anymore. If they had sex, she’d lay there until he finished and then roll over to go to sleep. It was too much for a guy to take, honestly.

  So, even though he knew it was wrong, he had started seeing other women. At first, he had gone to prostitutes—that was just about the sex. Then he had dated a string of women secretly. He bought them nice gifts with Maddie’s money and kept them quiet.

  He knew he should just leave, but over time, the money had become reason enough to stick around. He would stay until Maddie was done with her gig as mayor, ask her for a divorce and demand half of everything simply because he had stayed to help her win an election or two. She owed him, dammit.

  Now, all that was being threatened. If anyone found out about the other women—found out that this hadn’t been a one-time thing—his plan was ruined. He could see it play out in his head. More women would be found or come out of the woodwork to say that they had slept with the mayor’s husband—all for fifteen minutes of fame. There was no way Maddie would let him leave with any money then. He would be penniless and alone, with no real career. He’d had one once—working for Maddie’s father and angling to take over his multimillion dollar oil and gas production company—but then he’d a falling out with the old man.

  When that gig ended, he and Maddie invested most of their money and got by just fine. Maddie, of course, was still a part owner of the company and received large percentages of profits, which meant he had continued to enjoy the finer things like traveling, golfing and not being a slave to a job he hated.

  Without the cushion of Carmichael money, though, John wasn’t sure what he would do. He had to find a way to keep everything quiet. By the time he finished his shower, the solution was clear. No, it was not ethical, but then neither was screwing a hooker behind your wife’s back, and he hadn’t had a problem with that. There was an election coming up next year, and Maddie had a lot to lose. She would lose her biggest donors, her voters and the election if anyone found out that the real reason her husband cheated was because she was not interested in sex with men. If she tried to screw him out of a settlement, he would make sure that the world knew exactly what Maddie preferred in bed—a woman’s tongue between her legs.