by Alexis Angel
I never liked being pushed around.
"No," I say, going up to my feet and staring at her. Whatever happens, whatever the consequences, I won’t go after Vivian, even if it costs me my career. How could I do it when all these memories still linger in my mind? When I can’t forget the way her skin feels under my fingertips, or the way our eyes lock when our bodies are pressed together… How could I go after the woman I love? No, I won’t do that.
Tina leans back against her chair, her lips pursing as a scowl takes over her face. Her eyes have gained a hard edge, and I can’t help but think of her as lacking a soul, her slender body and delicate smile nothing more than transportation and cover for a sociopathic demon. My Chief of Staff looks from me to her, but he remains in silence; no words are being said, but he’s smart enough to know that a battle of wills is going on between me and this mysterious woman—Communist Party member, China First Bank representative, even Mayor of Shanghai. Even though he might think she’s right, Curtis is loyal to a fault and won’t take part in a cabinet revolution.
"You have no idea what you’re doing, Carter," she hisses, going up to her feet. There’s more than just anger in her voice; there’s hatred. "Look around you; even your own cabinet knows that you’re a shame to the Governor’s office. And all because of that woman!"
For the first time in days, I feel peaceful. Hesitation has finally given way to clarity. Tina Ling—who does she think she is? And why is she even sitting here? She doesn’t care about New York, but I do, and in their own way, so does Liam and Vivian. We might not agree on everything, but our purpose is the same. And here I am, listening to Tina as she tries to pit the people who care about this state against one another.
"Tina, don’t take this the wrong way…" I say, a polite smile on my lips as I stare her down. "But you can go to Hell. I’m the New York’s Governor, and you’re no longer welcome here." I’m not even mad right now. I feel at ease, my course of action suddenly becoming self-evident. I can’t believe I’ve let a foreign politician string me along for so much, but there’s still time to fix my mistakes. There’s a way out of this.
"I know you came once and I told you to go," I say to her. "And I know Curtis invited you again and I heard you out completely. I can safely say now that I truly want nothing to do with you. Ever."
There’s silence.
"You’re going to regret this," she seethes, pushing her chair back. Her body is tense, her petite frame charged with the fury of someone who just had her prize snatched away at the last minute. With one final look of contempt, she turns on her heels and storms out of the office, slamming the door on her way out. Curtis’ eyes follow after her, an oh-shit expression plastered all over his face. No one in the room says a word, but I feel their eyes boring on me like nails.
"Thank you for letting me know where you stand," I start, slowly addressing each one of the members of my cabinet. "Let me assure you; there’s a way out of this, and it won’t require for us to sell our souls in order to save our careers. Your trust in me is, and has always been, well placed. Now, if you’ll excuse me," I head for the door, buttoning my jacket on the way out, "I have work to do."
Heading straight for the courtyard, I feel my resolve hardening with each step I take. My driver is smoking a cigarette, leaning against the car with a wistful look on his face, but he puts it out the moment he lays eyes on me, straightening up almost as if he were a soldier who just saw his commanding officer.
"Get the engine running. We’re moving," I tell him as I step inside the car. I’m going to solve this—whatever it takes. I tell my driver the directions, and it doesn’t take long for the car to be rolling down the highway.
Liam
"There are of course multiple ways to look at this situation," my attorney, John Barlow, is telling me as he leans back in the chair in my library. "But the only way that’s going to get you through it is by looking at it from a perspective of saving yourself."
I shake my head and take another sip of the scotch. Honestly, I have no fucking clue what’s going on anymore. Every time it seems like I’m making some progress or even Vivian and I are getting somewhere or Carter and I are patching things up, something seems to drop and make things even worse.
I mean, this has been a litany of getting slapped around by life, if you ask me. Talk about what could go wrong actually going wrong? It’s as if someone sat down and made a list of all the bad things that could happen to us and then actually made them happen. All so someone else could read about it and be entertained.
Well, as much as I hope you are entertained, I hope you fucking know that it's not fun being impeached by the people you used to call your friends.
Or watching the woman you love being forced to stay the fuck away from you.
Or watching someone you could have gotten along with pretty well end up stabbing you in the fucking back.
So, yeah, I hope you’re entertained. Because my life is a piece of shit right about now.
"I don’t even know if I can save myself right now, John," I say, taking a deep sigh.
He looks at me and says, "Sure you can, Liam. You’re just going to need the mental discipline to be able to follow through."
I look at him with a puzzled expression as he continues. "You’re going to need to follow along with what Carter is going to do and blame everything on Vivian Hawthorne. How you were working toward a deal with Carter before Vivian came in the picture. How the only reason you spoke to Tina Ling was to get all possible viewpoints. Remember, Tina and Vivian were at some fundraiser a couple weeks ago put on by China First Bank. That’s where you snare that sumbitch Carter too. How because you don’t play the money game they’re trying to get you out."
I’m fucking shocked as I look at the lawyer sitting in front of me.
"Jesus, you want to take a breath in between stabbing people in the back that many times, John?" I ask my lawyer. "I don’t think Vivian or Carter would ever fucking work with Tina Ling, and I don’t see how Vivian could ever have led us to the shit show that’s going on right now."
John shrugs. "It doesn’t matter," he says looking at me with an almost open expression. "What matters is that we start getting it out there and get the media to start smelling for it. Before you know it, they’ll have done most of the work for us. They’ll dig out a story, but more than likely they’ll put enough allegations and half-facts that they find out there that it’ll cloudy up the waters enough to get you out of the predicament you’re in now."
Jesus fucking Christ. John leans back in his chair, satisfied with himself for coming up with a brilliant approach.
"How long you been doing this, John?" I ask. He’s supposedly one of the best political operatives there are in the state. And I can see why. The man has the compassion of a snake.
"Fifteen years," he beams at me proudly. "I’ve helped too many politicians through too many scandals. I can’t even remember what they are anymore.
John is the type of consultant and operative that people call when shit really starts hitting the fan hard. He’s the person they call when they need someone to fix up a giant and colossal fuckup that they may have committed.
He’s also probably right. Muddy up the waters. Confuse people. Give them a common enemy to get angry at. And they’ll devote less of their energies toward trying to crucify me. It’s a model that politicians on both sides of the aisle have used before. And they’ll use it again.
What’s even more fucking telling is that John doesn’t have any sort of allegiance to the fucking truth. The truth is to him whatever he fashions and other people believe. If all of a sudden people started believing in ghosts, John would probably accept it. But he’d have a plan ready to get people to start believing anything else as well.
There’s nothing fucking real about this man. It’s all 100% fake.
That’s not what I got into politics for. There’s nothing fake in how I grew up. Nothing fake in the misery of being poor.
"John?" I ask, w
alking towards the hallway as I head out the library.
"Yeah, Liam?" he answers, curious as to why I’m walking away.
"Get the fuck out of my house," I say to him.
There’s a pause. I hear him sigh and shuffle some papers in the other room and slowly get up and walk down the hardwood floors till he comes to the hallway.
"You sure?" he asks with a pained expression. "It’s only going to get uglier."
I shake my head. "I don’t care how ugly everyone else gets," I tell him. "I didn’t get into politics to start throwing people under the bus."
John nods. "You’re a good man, Liam," he says to me as he walks out the door. He pauses and looks at me. "Maybe too good for this game."
I close the door and take a sip of the scotch I’m still holding. I got home to take this meeting with John and decided midway through that I needed a drink. I just didn’t want to deal with the level of fucking bullshit that saving myself was going to entail.
And that’s the thing, isn’t it? I could maybe save myself. Throw some people under the bus. Owe a few favors.
But then what? Someone else would come knocking looking to get back at me for fucking over their friends. Like a fucking vendetta. And someone I owed favors to would collect. And I’d be building more fucking alliances and spend even more time protecting my fucking back.
This is what our politicians do all fucking day. No wonder shit is so fucked up.
But I mean, am I any different? Sure, I came into this job determined to help people. I didn’t want these people in New Kingston to keep going on with their lives without someone hearing their voices. Because it’s one thing to be poor in America; this country still gives you the chance if you want to pull your shit together and make a living somehow to give your kids a better life.
But it’s another thing to be powerless and voiceless in a fucking democracy. When no one can hear your voice calling out in pain, no one is going to stop doing it.
But once you’re heard, you’re 90% of the way there.
Maybe I could have done things differently is all I mean, you know? Maybe I was being just like the people I’m complaining about when I sat there and told the press that if Carter had a problem with the factories he could just fuck off.
Why the fuck did I do that? Because he stopped on the way to the city to tell a small town mayor what to do? Because he made me feel small—that he fucking owned me—and I wanted to show him?
And Tina Ling. Why couldn’t I just go and come out and let people know what was going on with her? How she was trying to fucking bribe me, and maybe even fuck me. Oh, right. Because I was worried what Vivian would think. But it all came out in the end anyways, didn’t it? Now everything is fucked up.
But it doesn’t have to stay like that, I think.
What? You think it can’t get any worse, right? I bet you’re even wondering how we could ever get to a HEA from here.
Well, I don’t know the answer to the second question. Or even the first.
But I do know that Carter and I were on the cusp of something close. We had something worked out almost. But we let it all fall to shit.
I think I know how I can bring it back again. No, I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you. You’ll find out soon enough.
Don’t give me that look. Just know that it’s going to be fixed soon. And no, I won’t tell you even if you suck my cock, so please don’t fucking try it, babe.
I head once more from the library where I was sitting and finishing my scotch to the hallway where I open the door.
I need to get to New York City where I can find Carter and Vivian.
I open the door.
That’s when I see Carter walking up the steps to the deck that leads to my front door.
His motorcade is quietly waiting for him in my driveway.
"We need to talk, Liam," Carter says. "I think we need to figure out a way to fix this now that they’ve started attacking Vivian."
I nod. And smile—slightly.
"I’m willing to work with you if it means protecting Vivian," I say to him. I mean it.
I was angry at Carter for talking down at me. But I can’t let anger cloud the…love…I feel for her.
"I think I would agree if you said, ‘We’re going to make those fuckers sorry they ever fucking bothered to fuck with us’," Carter says with a smile.
"What the fuck? You think I’m 12 years old or something, Carter?" I ask with a smile.
"No," Carter says, extending his hand. "But I’m willing to work with you to find a solution to this mess. Because I can’t the two of you out of my head."
It’s a good sign if we’re already thinking the same fucking thing.
Carter walks inside. We’re going to have a lot of talking to do.
Vivian
I’m staring out of the window as the car cruises through NY traffic. It’s rush hour, and I should be using the time to go through the dozens of emails sitting in my inbox. Or maybe I should return a few phone calls and try to find a foothold in this New Kingston debacle. But tired as I am, all I do is look out the window, taking in the moving view of the city.
The sidewalks are full with people going on about their day, the intricate Albany politics nothing more than a footnote to their personal lives. It never ceases to amaze me how the fate of millions are decided by a handful of people, and how little everyday Americans actually care about it. But that’s why people like me exist; as a Senator, it’s my duty to carry their burden, doesn’t matter how heavy.
Of course, that’s also Liam’s and Carter’s burden. Governor, Mayor, Senator—it really doesn’t matter what they call us, what matters is that we exist to serve. Too bad that everyone has their own definition of service, and that’s exactly why we’re all sharpening knives even though we’re on the same team.
"And here we are," my driver says, looking at me through the rearview mirror. He reaches for the handle of his door, ready to go around the car and open my door, but I just wave him away.
"Don’t worry, Bill," I smile at him, clutching my briefcase to my chest as I open the door. "Have a good evening."
"Likewise, Senator," he responds merrily, changing the radio station to something more to his liking. By the time he settles on a station, I’m already standing on the sidewalk. I turn toward the entrance to my apartment building and I freeze. I have to blink twice in order to make sure that what I’m seeing isn’t a hallucination.
Carter and Liam stand in front of the door to my apartment building, talking in a hushed tone. I walk toward them as fast as I can, a panicky feeling growing inside my heart. These two are prone to share words and fists, and I want to get between them before that happens.
"What’s going on?" I ask them as they turn toward me. Liam has his usual smirk on his lips, but Carter is donning a smile as well. I’m taken aback by their easiness, and I look from one to the other, trying to get an answer to my question.
"Here she is!" Liam says, glancing at Carter. "Right on time."
"We were just talking about you," Carter continues, a serious but carefree expression on his face, if that’s even possible.
"About me? What’s going on, guys?" I repeat, looking from one to the other. They remain in silence, but finally Carter reaches for the building’s door and pushes it back.
"Why don’t we get inside? Before anyone decides to start snapping pictures." I nod, and walk past the two men. They follow after me, still in silence, and I call for the elevator.
"You’re not punching each other, so I guess that’s a good sign," I tell them, leaning against the marble wall as I wait for the elevator.
"Smart as always, Senator," Liam says in a mocking tone, folding his arms over his chest. I open my mouth to respond, but I’m cut short by the sudden ding of the elevator doors; they open and the three of us step inside. I press the button to my floor, and in a couple of seconds, we’re being carried all the way to the top.
"So, what’s this all about?" I start, anxiety maki
ng me eager for answers. I look from one to the other, my heart beating fast as I realize I’m all alone with them.
"This… This is about doing the right thing," Carter says, taking one step toward me. I look him in the eyes, not really sure of the meaning behind his words. I turn to Liam, but he simply nods at me, agreeing with Carter.
"And what’s the right thing, Carter? Tell me, because I’m dying to know." Without a single word, he leans into me, slowly closing the distance between our mouths, and presses his lips against mine. I don’t move as he comes for me, my eyelids drooping by instinct. "This is the right thing," he whispers, pulling back from me. I don’t even have the time to think about what’s happening: as Carter pulls back, Liam comes closer and lays his lips against my neck, one hand resting on my waist.
"The right thing," Liam repeats Carter’s words, his lips close to my ear. "You were right, Vivian… It’s different when we’re together." I want to ask them about New Kingston, about the factories and the jobs, but I can’t seem to put the words into a coherent sentence. It seems that politics will have to take a backseat for the time being.
"Are you sure…?" I whisper, looking from one to the other as my pussy grows wet. God, I just want to hold them both and have their bodies pressed against mine… But I have to make sure they know what they’re doing. That we aren’t just digging a bigger hole for ourselves.
"I’ve never been more sure in my entire life," Carter says, leaning into me and kissing my neck. I close my eyes and sigh, the lips of both men caressing the soft skin on my neck.
"We want you, Vivian," Liam whispers, placing his hand over my knee and sliding it upward to the hem of my slim fitting skirt, his fingers moving under the narrow cut. "We want you bad."
"You have no idea how I wanted to hear that," I purr, my eyes still closed as I throw my head back and let both men kiss my neck.
"I think we have a pretty good idea," Carter says, his hand resting on my hip. I’m almost oblivious to the outside word and, if it weren’t for the loud ding of the elevator doors opening, I would just let them take me right here.