Bad Girls Finish First

by Shelia Dansby Harvey

  “She doesn’t dress like that every day,” he said, still feeling defensive. “Those were her moving clothes.”

  “Pretty skintight for moving but she got the job done. Heck. I wish I could dress like that any day.” Before she got out of the car, Genie pulled Christopher to her and gave him a real kiss. “See you Sunday evening?”

  “Yeah, babe. I can’t wait.” On his way back to the center, Christopher thought about his father’s offer to have a talk about Genie. No need for that. Genie’s kiss, and the way she backed off about Monica, proved it. Their relationship was heading back on track.

  15

  “Mrs. Joseph, to what do I owe the pleasure?” State Representative Charlie Smotes said as he ushered Raven into his office using the cigar he held as a pointer.

  “Pleasure’s all mine,” Raven said in a honeyed voice. She’d been in Texas long enough to mimic a Southern drawl when she needed to. She made sure she passed close enough for Smotes to smell her perfume.

  Raven had on pants, so sitting back and crossing her legs wouldn’t do. She knew every fashion rule including the one that dictated that when the bottom was covered the top had to be exposed. Raven leaned forward as she spoke.

  “I’m here on pension protection, Charlie.”

  “You are?” He feigned surprise and ogled her breasts at the same time. “Why?”

  “Because I hear you still haven’t made up your mind how you’re going to vote.”

  Smotes stood and poured himself a drink to go with his cigar. Raven’s breasts were okay but they were too brown for his taste. He’d rather have a drink. “Michael’s got you out rounding up votes? I thought that was Dudley’s job.”

  Raven got up and walked over to Smotes. “It is.” She took the drink from him, had a sip, and handed the glass back. “But you’re a special case, so I decided to come myself.”

  Smotes nodded and sat the glass down. A six-piece glassware set, ruined, he thought. “A special case, huh. Michael said that?”

  Michael had said nothing of the sort and Dudley hadn’t either. Raven hadn’t talked to either of them about her plan to visit Smotes. She knew that next to gun control, pension protection was the project closest to her husband’s heart. They’d lost so many endorsements and votes lately, she didn’t want to take a chance on losing another one.

  “We need you on this one, Charlie,” Raven said as she mentally sized him up. Although it was early fall, Smotes wore a sky blue seersucker suit. Raven idly wondered where he could have purchased such an atrocity. He waved his cigar like it was a Cohiba, but Raven could tell from the aroma that the cigar was a cheap drugstore brand. He’s for sale, she thought, at a bargain basement price.

  Although she had given him back the glass, Raven didn’t move out of Smotes’s personal space. “You come through for Michael on the pension plan bill and I promise you, he won’t forget about you when he becomes governor.” She was so close he could feel her breath, which smelled of spearmint.

  Smotes took a puff of his cigar and exhaled right into Raven’s face. “You mean if he becomes governor. And that’s a pretty vague promise, don’t you think?”

  Raven forced herself not to blink. She stared into Smotes’s eyes through the smoky haze. “I said when he becomes governor, Charlie, and that’s what I mean. And as for the promise, it’s as good as a slimy slug like you is going to get.”

  Raven reached into her bag and removed an envelope. “I’ve heard through the grapevine that you’re a poor man. What is it they call you people? Poor white trash or trailer-park trash? I always confuse the two.” She shook her lovely hair and laughed in his face. “A poor white politician. You’ve got to be the dumbest man alive if you can’t figure out how to make money in this game.”

  She waved the envelope in front of Smotes. “Here’s a little something to help you make next month’s rent on your double-wide. You know what I expect in return.”

  Raven dropped the envelope on the floor and walked out. She had no way of knowing that Erika had already funneled Smotes more than enough cash to buy himself a little something nice. A car, maybe, or a down payment on a beach house in Galveston. All Smotes had to do was vote against Michael on the pension bill, and keep on voting against him on every piece of legislation that hit the floor.

  “He in yet?” Michael demanded of Smotes’s secretary.

  “Yes sir, he is. But—”

  Michael strode to Smotes’s door and barged in. “Charlie, what the hell! What happened? I thought we had a deal!”

  “Morning, Mike.” Charlie Smotes was sitting on his sofa, watching Good Morning America. “Just catching up on current events. Join me?” He motioned toward a chair.

  Michael stood in front of the TV and held up his fingers like quotation marks. “Senator Joseph’s pension board legislation dies on the vine.” Michael made a disgusted snort. “Doesn’t even make it out of committee. How’s that for a current event?”

  Smotes turned off the television and walked over to Michael. “Oh, so now I guess it’s your turn to bully me. I’m surprised, Michael. You know I don’t respond well to being pushed around.”

  “Pushed around? What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about your wife.” Smotes pulled a cigar and lighter from his shirt pocket. The cigar between his lips, Smotes cocked his head to the side and lit up. “Sending her over here to strong-arm me. The way she came into my office, talking to me like I’m some damn errand boy—you must’ve been out of your mind to pull a stunt like that,” Smotes said, the cigar bouncing up and down as he spoke. “From now on, when you’re lining up votes, count me out.”

  Smotes went to his door and invited the Democratic candidate for governor of the great state of Texas to get the hell out of his office.

  “Raven! What did you do?” Within twenty minutes of leaving Smotes’s office, Michael was in his wife’s. The brisk walk from Smotes’s state capitol office to Michael’s campaign headquarters left him red faced. The only time Raven had seen her husband so out of breath and excited was during sex.

  “Sit down a minute, Michael. Here.” She poured a glass of water and tried to hand it to him, but he wouldn’t take it.

  “I don’t have time to sit down.” He looked at his watch. “What in the world possessed you to go talk to Smotes about the pension bill?”

  Raven was the picture of innocence. “Honey, I talk to legislators all the time, you know that.”

  “But I’d already talked to Smotes. You had no business going to him. Do you know how ineffective this makes me look? If I can’t push through my agenda as a senator, why the hell should anyone trust me to be governor?”

  “If you didn’t want my help, you should’ve told me.” By now, Raven was fully on the defensive. “Things have been so raggedy around here, I’d think you’d want all the help you can get.”

  “I appreciate help, but not the kind of help that makes veteran politicians feel like dirt.”

  “Michael, you’re wrong,” she protested. “I don’t know what Smotes told you, but I treated him just fine. You know how I can do a man when I want something.” She turned her back on Michael, let the innuendo sink in. “If he says anything different, he’s a liar.”

  “You calling somebody else a liar. That’s rich.” Michael walked around to where Raven could see him. He’d calmed down, and his voice was matter of fact, but his eyes were as cold as ice. He looked at Raven that way more and more these days.

  “I owe you a lot. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have had the nerve to run for governor in the first place. But sometimes, Raven, you’re nothing but an albatross hanging around my neck, messing up everything.”

  Michael was tired of reminding himself every other day that he was the one who’d wanted to get married to Raven, he was the one responsible for keeping his marriage to a firecracker on track. He decided to give Raven a quick, hard one below the belt.

  “Grace was quiet, not nearly as outgoing as you are. She wasn’t on
e to go out politicking for me, but she’d cut off her arm before she’d do something to hurt my career. The difference between you and Grace is that her main concern would’ve been me becoming governor.” He had his finger in Raven’s face by this time. “The main thing, the only thing you care about, is being the governor’s wife. What I wouldn’t give to have a woman like Grace on my side every once in a while.”

  He broke off and headed toward the door. “I’m in meetings all day. Tonight, too. When you get home, I won’t be there. Don’t wait up,” Michael said and walked out.

  “Hey, little lady, what you up to?” David asked as he entered Raven’s office. He was in Austin for the day, and as had become his custom, he stopped by to see if Raven was available for lunch. Dinners he reserved for Erika.

  “Hey,” Raven responded. She was usually a perpetual whirlwind, but for once Raven was sitting at her desk, doing nothing. Except, that is, figuring out how to get back at her husband.

  As David took a seat, Raven got up and locked the door. Then she went back and sat down behind her desk. They chatted for a few minutes, but David sensed that Raven was just going through the motions. “How’s life treating you today?” he asked her.

  “Not too good.” Raven didn’t say anything else and when David continued to look at her quizzically, she added, “Headache.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?” He got up and went to her. “I’ve got magic hands. Just tell me where it hurts.”

  “Here.” Raven motioned to her temples. David began rubbing in a circular motion just at the edge of Raven’s hairline. She relaxed and closed her eyes. It was so quiet in the room that David could hear her soft breathing.

  Raven reached up and guided David’s hands into the thick of her hair. As David rubbed his hands through her luxurious mane, his breathing became as audible as hers. Raven leaned forward, flipped her hair up in back, and held it there. “My neck,” she said.

  What the hell are you doing! David’s conscience shouted at him, but it was a tiny, faraway shout that was drowned out by all the heavy breathing going on. David bent low and massaged Raven’s neck, then her shoulders. She leaned back in her chair then and grabbed David’s left hand. She guided his hand inside her shirt.

  “No,” David managed to say and tried to pull away, but Raven held him firmly.

  “Can you feel how fast my heart is beating? Go on, feel it.” Raven slowly let go of David’s hand and instead of pulling away he squeezed her tighter and groaned deeply. David twirled Raven’s chair around, picked her up, sat in it, and placed her in his lap, so that she straddled him. He thrust his hands into her hair again, pulled her to him and kissed her. Raven’s lips were as soft as he’d imagined they would be.

  David wrapped his arms around Raven. “We can’t do this to Michael,” he whispered in her ear. His voice was thick with guilt.

  “This doesn’t have anything to do with Michael. It’s between me and you,” Raven whispered back. “This has been coming for a long time, David, and we both know it.” She backed away from his ear and kissed him again and then looked him in the eye, silently asking him, Are you down?

  David’s expression was a jumbled mixture of sadness and heat. He bowed his head and when he raised it again, Raven was looking at a different man. The brother was up, had been since the moment he opened Raven’s door and looked at her, and now he began moving slowly beneath her. Raven thought buck wild was the only way to go and she tried to hurry him along. She tried to unbutton his shirt and take off his belt, but David wouldn’t respond. David didn’t change the tempo of his own unhurried groove, he just kept kissing her, pulling at her tongue, gently biting her full lips. He kept it up until Raven started moving at his rhythm and started kissing him back.

  “Take it slow, pay attention,” David whispered to Raven, once he’d subdued her. “You don’t want to miss any part of what’s about to happen.”

  David shoved everything off Raven’s desk and placed her there. He undid her top and slid her thong to the side. Then he quickly undressed himself. Reverend David Capps, with his thirty-seven-year-old, righteous self, was a specimen. His biceps were pumped, and his upper body was broad and cut. David’s stomach wasn’t exactly flat, but it was firm. A patch of curly hair dusted his chest, formed a band at his sternum, headed south, and kept going.

  He dropped his shorts and there it was.

  Raven rose up and held him in her hands as one would a rare jewel. “You should have told me,” she said. “I wouldn’t have waited so long.”

  “Is that it, Robert?” Michael asked the representative from the budget office. They were in Michael’s Senate office on state capitol grounds.

  “Well, actually, there is one more item.” He handed Michael a folder.

  Michael opened the folder, then snapped it shut. “I need a break.” He looked at his watch. It was almost three. “Let’s take an hour, hour and a half.”

  Raven hadn’t called or stopped by the way she usually did after one of their arguments. She’d usually come in and fling a bunch of four-letter words, he’d fling around more, and then they’d go to lunch, or slip home for a little midafternoon love. Michael missed that. Guess I went too far this morning, he thought.

  He decided to walk over to his campaign headquarters and apologize.

  “You’re a wild one,” David said. He and Raven were again seated in her chair, but now they were only half-dressed.

  “And I’m bad, too,” Raven replied. At least she’d tried to be, but David wasn’t having it. He let her smack his butt, but when she dug her fingernails into his shoulder, David grabbed her hand and held it. When she’d reached for his throat with her other hand, he changed positions, pulled her down to the edge of the desk, put her legs over his strong shoulders, and lightly pinned her arms. “Don’t get rough with me,” he’d growled. “Ain’t but one man here.

  “I like my women bad,” David said, and moved to kiss her again. Can’t get enough of her lips, he thought.

  They were interrupted by a knock on the door.

  Raven started to move, but David put his arm around her waist, and motioned, shhh. The knocks came again, and then a voice: “Raven, honey, are you in there?”

  It was Michael.

  Over a late lunch, Christopher told Genie, “She’s done it again.”

  “Who did what?”

  “Your boss. She went to State Representative Smotes about the pension bill. Got nasty with him.”

  Genie put down her fork. She didn’t know what went on with Smotes, and she didn’t care. Genie was able to work for Raven because she was able to decipher her moods and because she was outstanding at her job. Today Raven was hell on wheels. She’d yelled at Genie twice already, and once even swore for good measure.

  Genie couldn’t snap back at Raven but she could take her frustration out on Christopher. “Stop being so immature, Chris. Calling Raven “she,” “your boss,” or “his wife” isn’t going to change the fact that Raven has a name. You ought to use it sometimes.”

  Immature? She didn’t think I was immature last night. “Okay. How about this: Raven Holloway Joseph, the future governor’s wife, went to Representative Smotes and talked to him, or rather, at him, about the pension bill. She—excuse me—Raven Holloway Joseph, the future governor’s wife, belittled Representative Smotes and badgered him to the point that he voted against the pension bill. How’s that?”

  Genie looked skeptical. “Raven wouldn’t do that. She wanted the bill to go through as much as your father did.”

  “Aren’t you listening, Genie? I didn’t say she intended to make Smotes to vote against us, but her style is so raw, alienating him was the end result. It would be nice if she stayed in her place, stopped messing everything up.”

  “And what place would that be?” Genie asked sharply. Christopher was as stressed as Genie. When he had talked to Michael earlier, his father’s anxiety had disturbed him.

  “I could tell you where Raven’s place is, but you’re just
like her, so it wouldn’t do any good,” he snapped back.

  Christopher didn’t often say things that stung Genie, so his words caught her off guard. She felt a twinge in her chest and her lips twisted oddly, but she didn’t respond.

  “Both of you,” Christopher continued, “are so ambitious you can’t envision anything about the future except for your own climb to the top.”

  “Christopher, that’s not true!”

  “Yes, it is. That’s why, no matter what happens, you’re always on her side. Why do you always take up for her?”

  Genie threw down her napkin and mimicked Christopher in a baby voice. “‘Always taking up for her. Always on her side.’ You’re such a baby, Chris. And you have the audacity to talk about getting married and having kids.” Genie stood, took one last sip of her soda and said, “You need to grow up your damn self.”

  When Michael knocked at her office door, Raven’s eyes widened and she tried to move again, but David held her tighter and shook his head back and forth, No. He had a little experience with sneaky office sex, and knew the worst thing to do was make a sound. Out of nervousness, Raven felt an irrepressible need to laugh; she couldn’t help herself. David put one hand over her mouth, and the look on his face, which had gone from lustful to distressed, made her want to laugh even more. Raven’s body shook from the effort of keeping the sound inside; David could feel her stomach muscles contract against his own.

  Standing outside the door, Michael took the key to Raven’s office from his pocket. He knew she was in there, Dudley had just told him so. Michael slid the key into the lock and gave it a half turn.

  Then he thought better of it, tried to figure out how a good husband would handle the situation. I acted a fool earlier today. If she doesn’t want to be bothered with me, that’s her right. Michael put the key away and headed back to his Senate office. I’ll get my secretary to send her roses.