Pt. 9
After senior staff, I pass Donna’s desk with an evil smile on my face. She’s on the phone, so I lean down and whisper in her ear, “Hey Judas, I need to see you in my office when you’re done there.” Of course, then I suck her earlobe into my mouth for just a second before standing back up, so I don’t think she’s too worried that I’m angry.
She walks in a few minutes later with her walker, her schedule book and her innocent face, but I’m not buying it. “You sold me out. You sent me into the lion’s den.”
“The lion’s den. You don’t think you’re overstating it? Just a bit?”
“The President was there. He made me explain full capacity to him.”
“And how exactly did full capacity come up?” She turns around and shuts the door, which gives me all kinds of ideas that don’t include work or scolding her. Ok, maybe scolding her…
I start waving my hands in the direction of the door. “You’re cheating. You’re distracting me.”
She laughs. “How is the shut door a distraction?”
“Because then you’re right there and no one else is around and…you just are. I’m trying to be angry here, and you’re distracting me.” The voice thing is happening.
“And when you were sucking on my ear out at my desk?”
“You were distracting me then too,” I say matter-of-factly.
“I was distracting you? I was on the phone.”
“Yes,” I say accusingly. “Yes you were. You were conveniently on the phone so I’d have to lean in to whisper to you. You’ve obviously learned early on that I’m fascinated by that part of you’re body.” Of course, it’s really the only part I’ve had access to so far.
“I see. I’m cunning, aren’t I?”
“Yes, very.”
“So, right now, I shouldn’t, say, do this.” She pulls her hair up off her neck with one hand and tilts her head to one side, leaving the other side exposed, then smiles seductively at me. I’m out of my chair and around my desk in front of her in record time.
“No,” I say as lean in and put long kisses on her neck, licking and nipping and sucking just a bit, but not enough to leave any marks. “It’s…” My mouth travels up to the earlobe and I suck it into my mouth gently biting it. “Very…” back down her neck to her collarbone where I lick the dip in her body there. “Distracting.”
She makes a small little sigh-moan-squeak, which I’m quickly learning to love, but then takes an abrupt step back and drops her hair. “Well then, no more of that.”
“What?” What’s happening here?
“Joshua, just because we’re dating doesn’t mean there isn’t a country to run. When we’re in the office, I’m Donna the assistant, not Donna the…”
“Girlfriend?”
“Right.”
“But…” She just…and then she stepped back? Is she trying to kill me? She didn’t even kiss back.
“No buts. I don’t make out with my boss.” Like I said, she didn’t even kiss back.
“But…you came in here and shut the door and held your hair up and…you sold me out again. You are Judas!” How can she do this to me?
”I’m not Judas.”
“But that was mean.”
“Yes it was, and I’m sorry for that.”
I look carefully in her eyes. “I don’t think you are.”
“Well, you’re a smart man,” she says with a smile.
“You’ve betrayed me twice in four hours.”
“I should be punished.’
”Yes.”
“And I will be.”
“Yes. Wait, you will?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Well, how about we go to lunch before your meeting with Hamilton. As punishment, I’ll let you suck on my neck and my ear as much as you want.”
“And your lips?”
“That seems only fair.”
This is a great punishment. I get to…wait a minute. “So, your punishment is that I’m going to buy you lunch and then make-out with you.”
“Yes. You don’t like my idea?”
“I’m not saying that.” I mean really, of course I want to make-out with her. But that’s no punishment. “I think you should buy lunch.”
“But that’s not going to happen.”
“True.” I think for a second. “Ok, but I get to pick where we eat.” I have to get something over her, or…well, I lose.
“Ok, as long as it’s sandwiches from Sequoia's.”
“Donna?”
“I’m sorry, I was just trying to think of someplace quick so you’d have more time for the…punishment.” Damn, a valid point. “But you’re right, you should get to pick. So, where do you want to go?”
“I was thinking of sandwiches from Sequoia's,” I say with a defeated voice.
She sighs dramatically. “Ok, I guess I deserve it. I did sell you out.”
“And they were mean to me,” I start whining.
“Poor baby. We should probably get ice cream on the way back. To make up for it.”
“Yes, we should.” She turns and walks out, leaving me to wonder what just happened. I don’t even like ice cream.
**********
I’m sitting at my desk an hour later when CJ walks up to me. “Hey, how about lunch? There are still details I need.”
I look up at her and smile. I haven’t been able to wipe this smile off my face all day. “I can’t today. How about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow? That’s too long for details. I need details. Sisterhood details.” She stops and looks at me. Then she looks over her back at Josh’s office. “Actually, I’m not sure about the details, it is Josh.”
“Yes, but we’ve discussed that, and you know what we think,” I say in a low voice.
“Right…incredible.”
“We are just speculating, but if he does everything as well as he kisses, we’re right.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Lunch then, come on. I need details. Please?????”
“Sorry, I’m being punished during lunch today for selling him out to you and Leo.”
“So he’s not letting you eat lunch?” She acts like she’s appalled by this, but it really sounds just like something he’d do.
“That’s not my punishment,” I say raising my eyebrows at her.
“Then what’s your punishment?”
“Josh is buying me lunch at Sequoia’s, and then we’re going to make out for the rest of the hour.”
“Lunch at your favorite deli and then a make-out session? That’s your punishment?”
“I negotiated well.”
She crosses her arms out in front of her and nods her head. “I’m impressed. You’ve learned well my child.”
“I’ve learned from the best,” I say, gesturing towards her.
“Well, that’s true.” She turns and starts to leave. “But if you get sequestered to my office today for your afternoon rest, we’re dishing.”
**********
Donna and I are eating lunch at a small deli a few blocks from the White House. When we got here, I walked up to the counter and ordered a pimento loaf sandwich for me and a chicken salad sandwich for her, which is what we always get. This is the precise moment I learned that things are going to be different from now on. Donna quietly but pointedly informed me that she doesn’t like pimento loaf, which I knew and is exactly why I always order it. I told her she didn’t have to have any of it, when what I really meant was steal any of it, but she told me that she’d still have to taste it afterwards, and if I insisted on pimento, she’d get tuna. Now here’s something you might not know about me: I hate tuna. And even though I’m telling you this, you cannot possibly grasp the loathing that I have for it. The taste, the smell, the texture, I hate it with a passion even greater than my hatred for Ryan Pierce, my ex-intern and current foe. When I tell you I hate tuna, I mean hate. Hate, people, hate. So, here we sit eating chicken salad and turkey sandwiches. “Do you think you could get around the hill ok if you needed to?”
“I don’t see why not, as long as someone dropped me off or I took a cab. Why?”
“I was talking to Leo after the torture meeting,” I say, looking at her sternly, “and we thought it would be a good idea for you to take some meetings on the arts in education bill.”
“Why not go straight to senators and congressmen? Why have preliminary meetings with aides?”
“They won’t be preliminary and they won’t be aides. You’ll be meeting with a few senators and several congressmen; mostly the ones sitting on the fence. I’ll take care of the opposition.”
She looks at me, shocked. “What? Isn’t that what Ed and Larry are for. They’re the congressional liaisons.”
“Well, now that we have an assistant that can do the smaller things, I’d like you to start assisting me on more important matters.”
“Really?” She’s beaming at me. In fact, she’s beaming so much, I’m wondering if she’s more excited about this than the recent development in our relationship.
“Hey. That’s not supposed to be the most exciting thing that happened to you today.”
“Oh, it’s not. But it’s still pretty great.”
“So if it’s pretty great, but the other thing is better, then what would you call that?”
“Amazing. Astounding. Sublime. Yes. Sublime. This chicken salad sandwich is definitely sublime.” My mouth opens wide. I’m talking about love and she’s talking about chicken salad?
“But…but. Donna!”
She reaches over the table and touches my hand. “I’m teasing. You are…this…us…it’s everything. Nothing less than everything.”
**********
We sit like that for a few more minutes, eating, smiling, bantering, slightly brushing against each other, basically doing that thing we do. We see a few people we recognize come in and go out, but CJ said we should slowly start being seen in more non-work activities, so although we don’t flaunt it, we aren’t hiding anything. CJ has a plan that includes Katie of the press corps, so in the next few days it should all be out.
About five minutes later, Josh gets anxious. “Alright, let’s go.’
“But I’m not done with my sandwich.”
"Wrap it up and eat it when we get back. We’re on a tight schedule.”
“Josh, it’s only been 20 minutes. I know we never take it, but we’re allowed a full hour.”
“It’s been 20 minutes? Damn. We’re running behind.” He takes my sandwich right from my hand and wraps it up in the wrapper it came in. “Let’s go.”
“We’re running behind?”
“Yes. We’ve only got 40 more minutes of punishment time. We need all that time.”
He’s standing, looking at me like we’re running some race and I've stopped to rest. “We need all that time?”
“Are you saying we don’t? Once we get back to the office, you’re off limits, remember?”
He has a very good point. I stand up and grab my walker. “You’re right. I can eat on government time, let’s go.” We head out the door and he puts his hand on my back to guide me, which I not only love, but noticed many times during the Josh/Amy debacles that he didn’t do that with her. That just makes me love it even more. “Where are we going anyway?”
“Well, I’ve been thinking about that. I think we’re going to my car.” He looks at me apologetically. “I know it’s not the center of romance, but I don’t think making out in the park across the street from the office is a good idea.” Then he stops walking and looks at me.
“What?”
He looks down at the ground and then directly in my eyes. "We don’t have to, you know. If you aren’t comfortable with…I don’t want to make an appointment to kiss you. I don’t want to put romance on a schedule. I don’t want to fit you in and make you feel like…we can go to the park and just sit and talk and hold hands. I’d be fine with that. I just want to be with you.”
I start to tear up instantly, but try to keep it in because if freaks him out. I whisper, “You’re perfect sometimes. You know that?”
He puts his hand over mine on the walker and runs his thumb over my knuckles. “You bring out my best,” he says as he slowly leans over and gives me a soft, warm, lingering, yet respectable kiss on the lips. When he pulls away, he keeps his head close to mine and moves his nose in a small circle around mine. Then he leans in and kisses me the same way again. It’s the perfect ‘in public’ kiss.
However, it leaves me wanting more. “Ok, I think we should go to the car now.”
“Oh yeah, let’s go,” he says, somewhat out of breath. He leans back up, and we turn forward to start walking again, and standing there, two feet in front of us, staring at us with a smirk in place is my worst nightmare.