Rogue Affair

by Tamsen Parker

  She shakes her head no. "You're not five years younger than me. Or ten. You're twenty goddamn years younger than I am."

  "Yeah, and I've got the body of a guy who sits at a desk for sixteen hours a day”—I rub my belly—"while you could go toe to toe with Michelle Obama in a Best Arms competition. We've both got things that can be used to embarrass us by assholes on the internet. So?"

  She shakes her head, silver streak swinging against a cheek bunched in a grimace. “It’s not the same.”

  “It is.” I can feel myself losing this argument, even though I’m convinced I’m right.

  “It’s not. And when I’m telling you about what women go through, I’d appreciate you not suggesting I’m imagining things, because I’m talking about something you will literally never experience.” Her arms are sword-straight, hands fisted at her sides. Her face and neck are flushed pink and her lips are thin lines pressed tightly together.

  Fuck. I am totally doing that. God damn it. I know better. Christ knows I’ve spent most of my life trying to root out the shit opinions and habits drilled into me by our fucked-up culture, but it doesn’t take more than some fear and anger before all that bullshit rears its ugly head.

  I still want to argue though. Not that she’s wrong. Just that we’re worth it. Worth the arguing, worth the effort, worth the embarrassment, if that’s what comes our way. Because I am afraid. And I’m angry too. At the world and our society and its shitty pervasive opinions, mostly. But maybe also a little bit at her too, because I want her to fight for us. I know I’m ignoring other things too, like the fact that I’m leaving in less than a week, but I’d never thought we were having a one-night stand. We’d waited and waited, and when we finally gave in, I assumed it was because we both realized how much we’d built—and could continue to build—between us.

  For the first time, however, it occurs to me that Anna might not feel the same way.

  Maybe to her we aren’t worth the embarrassment. The effort.

  “I think you should go,” she says politely, and the rejection is clear.

  And as much as I try not to take it personally—to remember that not everything is about me and that this woman has stresses and real problems affecting millions of people on her plate and maybe our connection is just one more problem than she has room for on that plate— it still stings.

  More than stings, if that bruised ache under my sternum is anything to go by.

  4

  Oscar

  “Oh. My. God. You’re banging Joan of Arc.”

  I’ve made the stupid mistake of attempting to drink away my sorrows at my local bar, a high-end cocktail joint in my South Loop neighborhood. But social media has been buzzing for twenty-four hours with the mayor’s speech and a killer follow-up press conference she gave this afternoon, and I haven’t been able to put my phone down for more hours. I’m too busy retweeting articles and editorials from the Trib and the Sun-Times and local pundits to remember to drink. After Alex, my favorite bartender, had finished giving me shit about not coming in for weeks, it hadn’t taken her long to figure out who was sucking up all my attention.

  “Shut up.” That hadn’t even been her best role.

  “Does she still have the armor?” Alex throws her hands up in front of her face when I bare my teeth and growl. “Down, boy. I don’t mean like that. I just meant it would be a cool souvenir and maybe she’d show it to you. I wasn’t talking sexytime cosplay. Jeez.”

  “Good.” I stuff childhood fantasies of seeing Anna in the chain mail bikini down deep. I don’t actually want that. She is such a badass in real life, and that movie, while admittedly formative, trivializes her power.

  I like that power. Way more than the metal mesh stripper costume.

  Not that she couldn’t rock it still. Seriously.

  “And we’re not banging.” I don’t know why I’m lying to my bartender, who is 100 percent keeping more secrets than I am, but it’s instinctive.

  “Dude. You don’t have to tell me anything. The look on your face tells me one helluva story though. God. I can’t believe I’m this close, metaphorically speaking, to sex with Joan of Arc.” Alex flutters a hand in front of her face for a moment before returning to beast mode and smacking off the Guinness tap handle with an elbow, giving a last shake to her steel cocktail shaker, and pouring the frothing, pale yellow liquid over a tall stack of brightly colored ice blocks in a Collins glass. The drink, per the menu, tastes like Trix cereal as the cubes melt. “All my childhood fantasies come true.”

  “Right?” That’s one of my favorite things about the bartender with the pale pink pixie cut: we have the same taste in women. I live half a block down from Velvet and have fallen into the habit of stopping in for a drink before heading home a couple of times a week ever since they opened.

  To my utter embarrassment—and Alex’s deep and lasting pleasure—I hadn’t realized Velvet was a lesbian bar for months.

  What can I say? The craft cocktails are phenomenal. The bartender is both always current on sports scores and able to referee in-depth political debates amongst regulars with insight and tact. The cracker-thin crusts of the individual pizzas make me want to weep. And there are some men. It isn’t Themiscyra in here.

  I was always surprised at how consistently liberal the patrons were when I got into conversations with other regulars. I mean, like, seriously progressive. Conservative political opinions are thin on the ground. Thin in the air. Just generally trim all around.

  Yes, I have seen Eddie Izzard in concert so many times his voice is triggered in my head by phrases like “thin on the ground.”

  Figuring out I was hanging out in a lesbian bar had definitely made the politics of the joint less confusing.

  “You know I’ve met her, right?” Alex says, pouring me my second, and final, cocktail of the evening. I can never remember what the ingredients for this one include. Something about bourbon and unicorn blood and the essence of smoked tobacco? Craft cocktails are a world unto their own and I’ve resigned myself to appreciating them with my mouth, without ever understanding them in my brain.

  Kind of reminds of the way I feel about Anna.

  The mayor. She’s not Anna, she’s the mayor.

  “When?” I ask Alex, dragging my brain back to the conversation at hand.

  “She and her girlfriend used to come in here.” Alex lifts her chin, pointing with it at the “snug,” the round back booth that offers a modicum of privacy and can only be used by those with connections. “They were cool.”

  High praise from Alex, notorious for her lack of patience with customers who want a light beer, or one-night-stands who expect a return engagement.

  I finally finish my second drink and signal to Alex for the check. She’s oddly unable to break away from so other regulars at the far end of the bar, however, so I settle myself in to wait. I’ve got nothing waiting for me at home—literally, almost all of my clothes and personal items have already been shipped to the furnished apartment I rented for the next year in DC—except silence.

  When someone slips onto the tall chair next to mine, I almost growl at them

  “Holy . . . what are you doing here?” I look over her shoulder for Madison or Di or anyone who might have come here with Anna.

  There’s no one. No one, that is, except for a smug Alex tossing me a quick wink.

  “Alex sent me a text saying you were here. That you’d been here for a while.”

  Apparently the connection between these two is slightly more established than Alex had implied. “I’m sorry if she bothered you. I promise I’m not drunkenly talking about you in bars.”

  Anna shakes her head. “I’d never think that. And I’m glad she reached out. I’ve been”—she takes a deep breath and lets it out—“thinking about you a lot today.”

  “Same,” I say without thinking, then pause. “Wait, you have?”

  She nods.

  “Well, I mean, you did spend most of today talking about details of a speech I
wrote for you, so I guess that’s natural.” I don’t know why I’m trying to give her an out, when I’m considering smiling for the first time since leaving her place last night. Maybe I’m afraid to get my hopes up.

  “No, it wasn’t that.” She shakes her head and her silver streak catches the light, shining. “I mean, yes. I thought about your speech too, because it was a game-changer for me, and you know how much I needed that. We’re going to do good, good things because of the work you’ve done and I’ll never forget how much I owe you.”

  “It’s been a pleasure and an honor,” I say quietly, meaning every word.

  “I was remembering that argument we had about closing those schools.”

  I remember. Maybe she’d been bored or I’d been pushy or we’d both been pretending we weren’t already angling for ways to spend more time together. Whatever the reason, we’d gone back and forth for hours one night. She was seriously considering a recommendation to close a variety of under-enrolled neighborhood schools that were a drain on the budget, and I had . . . let’s call them strong feelings that whoever had provided that recommendation was a walking pile of shit with the credibility of a jelly doughnut.

  “I was thinking about how we talked,” she says. “Like equals. How you were able to argue with me, hard, on every point, while never once making me feel as if you didn’t respect me.”

  “Because I do.”

  “I know. But you also know how to draw the line. You’re not afraid to contradict me or to push back against the authority inherent in my office. And that’s something incredibly hard to find. I don’t know if you can understand just how hard.

  “So I was standing at that podium, remembering our argument and making my points again, and I realized everything I said was stronger for having been sharpened against the edge of your mind. That knowing you is never going to make me weaker, no matter what kind of reaction we get from anyone else.” She pulls my glass of melting ice toward her and drinks the melted dregs as if her mouth is dry as the Sahara, before pushing the glass back to me with a guilty look. “And the same goes for you. As much as you focus on me, on my needs and wants and desires, you’re never going to lose yourself in me. I won’t make you weaker either.”

  I press my lips together and try not to smile at her. She made me feel like shit, asking me to leave when we were in the middle of an argument, but hearing how much she’d been thinking about me all day is definitely making me feel better. I must not cover up my smile well enough though, because she rolls her eyes and drops the serious stuff.

  “So are you still on Team Do It Again or what?”

  “I’m saying.” I get up and sling my coat on, ready to leave, like, now.

  “I take it you’re ready to get out of here?”

  Screw the check. I pull a truly excessive amount of cash out of my wallet and leave it on the inner rail of the bar for Alex, who gives me the nod as we head out into a warm and rainy night.

  Anna

  Back at my place for the second time, it’s clear Oscar is carrying a bit of a grudge. I wouldn’t have expected him to be a pouter, but he’s really pouring it on by the time we stumble mostly naked into my bedroom, our clothes marking a trail from the front door behind us. He falls onto my bed and stretches out on his side, head propped on one hand.

  “You owe me.”

  “Do I?”

  “Yes. I spent all day sitting in a bar, forgetting to get drunk because I can’t stop thinking about you and what I could write for you next. I felt like shit and it’s all your fault.”

  “I am sorry I was asshole,” I say with a smile, meaning it. I never meant to hurt this man.

  “Eh. I was an asshole first, arguing with you. And I’m sorry too.” I like that he apologizes easily. It’s one of my favorite traits in a lover. “But I think you should make it up to me anyway.”

  I like how demanding he is too. That’s another favorite.

  “And how should I do that?” I ask archly, as if I might not grant his request.

  He rolls onto his stomach, naked ass rounding perfectly as he wiggles his thighs apart. “You should fuck me.”

  There’s a part of me that wonders if he’s suggesting this to make some kind of point. To show me how much he wants to be with me, by asking for this thing I’m not used to straight men wanting. But even wondering that takes away his agency, and I give him the credit of believing he can verbalize his own wants and desires, and this is one of them. That it’s mine too—my stomach muscles tightening in anticipation as my heartbeat kicks up a notch and my mind’s eye pictures the sight of my strap-on sinking into him—just makes it hotter.

  Also, I am twenty years older than him. No sense ignoring that fact. Maybe more straight guys are into getting fucked these days than I realize.

  In any case, working over Oscar’s body to get him ready is a pure pleasure. And when I finally ease into him, as he’s gasping and groaning beneath me, the feeling of control over his pleasure is powerful enough to bring me to the edge of my own orgasm.

  Afterward, I masturbate next to him, and he skims his fingernails over my breasts so lightly I could scream. And I do, minutes later, stroking my clit until I climax with a sharp cry swallowed under Oscar’s kiss.

  We sleep tangled together until the sun rises on a shining Saturday morning. I wake sweaty and damp, because Oscar is a hot water bottle under my arms and legs. If he were staying, I’d never need a furnace again.

  Knowing he’s leaving soon is a sharp pain. I’m not ready to give him up yet, although I know exactly how big a step this move is for him. But if I can’t keep him for good, I at least want him for more than this second night.

  “I’m addicted to BBC crime dramas,” I say abruptly when his eyes open. “I can’t actually binge watch, because I’ll be on the phone at least twice an hour, pretty much all day. But if you want to stay here for the weekend and be horrified with me at the evil that lurks beneath the surface. . .”

  He presses a kiss to my mouth and slides out of bed. “I leave for DC in five days and I have four thousand pages of reading on the VA to do before then. How about I stay until my Lyft to the airport picks me up, and we see each other during whatever time you can squeeze free, assuming you’re not going to get tired of me before then.”

  “Not. Likely.” Elation acts like low blood pressure on my head, making me dizzy. Five days. Or pieces of days. More than I’d hoped for.

  Okay, that’s a lie. I’d hoped like hell.

  “Well, then.” He grins at me from under messy hair while pulling on his shorts. “Breakfast in bed and sort-of binge-watching British crime dramas while working, it is.”

  I laugh and get out of bed too. “Excellent. But I can make breakfast if you want to grab a shower. How do you like your eggs?”

  “Made of tofu scramble?”

  I blanch, then rally. “Toast and juice it is. Wait, don’t tell me. . .”

  “It really is hard to believe it’s not butter.”

  “Oh my god.”

  Now he’s the one laughing, because naked despair on me is apparently entertaining. “I’m kidding.”

  “Oh, thank god.”

  “I’ve got this plant-based spread that tastes just like butter.” It’s obscene how entertained he is by my horror. His frigging eyes are twinkling.

  “Are you”—I pale even further—“vegan?” How could I have missed this? But thinking back, I realize that Oscar has always been judicious in his food choices.

  “Sort of? But not on purpose.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  He shrugs, and I am temporarily distracted by the shifting muscles of his shoulders. “I don’t eat meat, but I’m not really a vegan. I just don’t like eggs and cheese, except on the occasional pizza. So. . .”

  “Accidentally vegan.”

  “Yeah, pretty much.”

  Okay. Okay. I’m the mayor, for Christ’s sake. I can deal with this. “Do you care if I eat meat?”

  My de
licious lover goes off on a total tangent, because he delights, apparently, in making me crazy. “My mom had a phrase she used constantly when my sisters and I were kids. She broke it out every time we came to her complaining that one of our friends got to do something or have something we weren’t allowed. I must have heard it a thousand times.”

  An expectant eyebrow prompts him.

  “She’d say, ‘Who are we in charge of? Just us.’ It’s pretty much my motto.”

  I think I see where he’s going with this digression. “So if we were to, say, go out to dinner together, hypothetically—”

  “I am in favor of this hypothetical scenario,” he says, stepping closer until our mostly naked bodies are pressed together.

  “—and I ordered a giant cheeseburger in front of you. . .”

  He shrugs. “I might make a face like this”—he wrinkles up his nose and pulls his lips back from his teeth—“because meat looks like a big pile of muscle and fat to me and that’s kind of gross, but I don’t actually care what other people eat. And assuming I’ve got food too, I’d be way more interested in my meal than yours.”

  “Okay, I can handle that.”

  “I don’t have time or mental energy to be in charge of anyone except myself. Unless we’re talking about professionally, in which case I want people to turn over complete mind and mouth control to me for as long as necessary.”

  That grin. Christ, it slays me. Wicked. Confessional. Conspiratorial. All my weak spots, damn it. I laugh from my belly. “I’ve noticed.”

  “So . . . dinner?” He loops his arms around my waist and grins down at me. “I’ll be back in a couple of months to see my family at the holidays. And there’s this upscale bar by my place you might have been to before that has excellent veggie pizzas.”

  “Maybe.” I make a mental note to send an enormous fucking bouquet of flowers to Alex. Or a really expensive bottle of wine.

  “I like maybes. Maybes have a lot of potential.”