by Kiera Zane
Jon says, “Pack your things, you’re fired.”
“Jon?” Tears well in my eyes and I hear Myron smirk almost bouncing on the balls of his feet in triumph.
“You heard him,” Myron says, “gather your things and get out, you little bitch! Go back to Wisconsin or whatever rock you slimed out from under; you’re dead in this town.”
Myron lurched backward, Jon clutching the collar of his jacket with one hand and the back of his belt with the other. “Actually, I was talking to you, Myron.” Jon pushes Myron across the bullpen toward the door. Jon’s face is twisted with rage, dark and menacing. I have never seen him this angry. Does he care that much for me? I guess he does. I want to smile at
“But Senator Caine --” Myron is sputtering defeat snatched from the jaws of triumph. He is red-faced, round glasses falling from his face to the floor. He leans forward retrieving them and attempting to put them back on his nose. He succeeds barely. No one moves. Pudgy Myron stumbles to his office. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“Go back to Arizona, Myron, you’re dead in this town!” Jon throws Myron out the front doors of the office and slams them shut. He turns to see us all staring at him. He walks over to me and says, “I’m sorry for what he said. He’s wrong.”
I nod not saying anything. I want to leap, twirl and dance like I used to in the forest of my homeland. Jon is in many ways like my papa. You marry the first man you love, right? Jon turns to head wordlessly down the hall toward his office, and the din and hum of the usual activity slowly returns to the bullpen. Vivian approaches me cautiously.
“No one has a right to speak to you like that. Be warned” She whispers it to me, then walks away before I can respond.
That night, Jon takes me to dinner to one of his favorite places, darkly lit and secluded. The salad is delicious; I’m growing quite used to it and even think about becoming a vegetarian.
Jon says, “You’ll need a good source of protein. Hope you’re fond of beans.”
We start talking about politics, which almost everybody in Washington talks about. It seems almost mandatory.
Jon asks, “Do you see yourself running for office someday?”
I shake my head as I give it some thought. “The whole business just seems so crooked to me. Present company accepted, of course.”
Jon chuckles and shrugs. “Nobody’s entirely honest in politics, or they’d never survive.”
“Well, I guess that’s true. But it’s not how I want to live.” I ignore the irony of my own half-truth. While I know damn well that I’m living a life based on lies and deceit, it’s truly not the life I want to live.
“At the moment,” Jon says, “you don’t really have a choice.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, allowing myself to appear more upset than I am. It’s another mind-control device, using pre-emptive emotion to effect a person’s decision-making. “Like I’m not smart enough to make my own decisions? Why, because I’m a woman?”
“No. it is because you’re so young.”
“Is that so? Well you’re not that much older than I am.”
“I’m in my thirties; I think I know what I’m talking about.”
I let myself sneer at him, enjoying the role of perturbed American liberal. “You think you do, but you’ve got another thing coming. There are big things happening in this country, Jon. With Kennedy, you’re going to see big changes; among races, even among genders. It’s not the 1950s anymore.”
“And so much the better for it,” Jon says.
“We women have had the right to vote for a long time now. It won’t be long until we’re paid the same as men in the workplace, too.”
Jon considers, and then shakes his head. “I think there you reveal the whole weakness of your starry-eyed optimism. I don’t think women will ever be paid the same as men; even for the same hours, same job, same everything.”
I can hardly believe what I’m hearing.
“And why’s that? Because, we don’t deserve it?”
“I didn’t say that. Lexy, I don’t mind having these little chats with you, but I won’t have you putting words into my mouth, and I won’t have you taking this tone with me.”
“Taking this tone?” I repeat. “I’m a grown woman, with First Amendment rights, thank you very much. I’ll say what I like in whatever tone pleases me. Unless you think women don’t deserve equal rights any more than they do equal pay?”
By this time I can feel the eyes of every woman in the room, their conversations silent as they watch our exchange. I know I’m speaking to them, and speaking for them, and speaking to their lunch companions as much as to my own.
So I really play it up.
I think back to my test at the police lockup in Moscow, how delicate the balance is between just enough pressure and too much; and how important it is to fully commit to one’s stance, whatever it may be.
Jon just glares at me, another powerful device. Jon is using silence against me, a weapon I know and employ all too well. I try to stare him back, but silence doesn’t work as a defense against itself, especially when everybody in the room is waiting to hear what you have to say.
I say, “Don’t you glare at me, with your brooding silence and your threatening stares.”
“I’ve never threatened you or given you any reason to feel threatened, Aleksandra.”
“Of course you have, that’s all you men can do; threaten and bully and push your way around, here in Washington more so than anywhere. It’s your stock in trade! Well, I’m a woman, and I’m a citizen of the United States of America, and I will not be quieted any longer. Someday this country is going to wake up to the inequality that’s ripping us apart. I just hope by that time that it isn’t too late, that people like you haven’t destroyed the very democratic concepts that this great nation was founded on.”
I stand and drop my napkin on the table, every woman in the room breaking out in wild applause. A few of the men clap too, although most snarl and sneer at me, at the other women, at the few men who also clap but soon stop.
By then, I’ve stormed out of the room anyway.
Jon is a good sparring partner, but I am too.
I’m in a cab as soon as I walk out of the restaurant. I’m not back in my apartment for more than five minutes before Jon bursts in, nearly knocking the door off its hinges. I don’t even have time to scream before he’s upon me, a flash and a force of pure natural energy.
I think he’s going to spank me again, and I’m not wrong. He pulls out one of my kitchen chairs, flips me over his lap and pins me with his legs and hands. My dress goes up, my panties go down, and I feel the first of many smacks on my rear end. I hate it; his words punctuated by each smack.
I hear him saying, “You have a right to your opinion; you don’t have a right to embarrass me in public. I don’t do it to you; you won’t do it to me.” Smack, smack, smack, smack. My tears are salty, wet and hot – streaming down my face. I have been whipped, beaten, tortured. It doesn’t compare to being spanked by somebody I love. And I do love him, I realize it again and again. My emotions are raw as I tell him I won’t do it again.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I plead hoping he will slow down, but he just continues. “Please, Jon, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.” I know this won’t stop until he chooses to stop it; in that moment, I can’t stand him even though I love him. In the beginning it makes me wet and horny, but right now it just plain hurts. It’s embarrassing; my own father hasn’t done this since I was a small child. I realize finally that he has stopped, and I’m just lying on his lap. His hand that delivered punishment earlier is just lightly rubbing my back.
It feels good; my frustration recedes. I don’t hate him, but I don’t want to face him either. This is one of the most embarrassing parts of our relationship. In five short minutes, he takes me back to my childhood when all I had to worry about was getting spanked by father. Jon has no idea all that has transpired since that innocent time. But, I am
not a child and what he would do when he realized that those fading scars he never speaks of are actually part of my KGB training.
And, what would Dragunov and Sobchak think if they knew I could be reduced to a balling child promising to be a good girl just to end a childish punishment. It was something they had missed preparing me for in all that brutal, cold training. They missed that and love – what happens to the agent when she falls for the man she’s supposed to be extracting information from and manipulating?
I close my eyes against the reality of my life.
***
He makes slow, delicious love to me for hours, in ways I’d never dared imagine and some that I did. The wall shudders as he smashes me into it, holding me up with his two arms and third leg, pressing and pummeling and pounding inside of me, gravity and destiny pulling me downward onto him.
Later I face the wall, cheek pressed hard against the plaster, my saliva darkening the cheap paint job. The wall is hard and stiff, massive and unyielding, pushing against me and holding me in place. And so is Jon. And I am a quivering mass of blossoming tissues and glistening flanks, my strong legs barely holding me up.
We bathe together that night, his strong arms drawing a soapy film over my fatigued muscles, my nerves racing with little electrical explosions of delight as his hand washes my sensual areas. He lifts my feet from the water, kissing my wet toes, pressing them against his angular cheek, little stubs of whisker scratching and tickling my soles.
We spend the day together. Even with Jon completely isolated from that gangland shootout, we’re still not out of danger; not from the KGB, who are surely shadowing us, but also from the original gang Jon was trying to bamboozle in the first place. If they suspect Jon was working with their rivals, whom Dragunov had convincingly framed by leaving one of their soldiers dead at the scene, they’ll blame him even though they’d intended to ambush Jon in the first place.
But Jon says, “No. The guys I was negotiating with got wacked. That means the whole matter has to be reconsidered. More likely than not, they’re regrouping and moving on to something else, probably taking care of that other crime family.”
“Then why wouldn’t they want to take you out too?”
He looks at me, a half-smile seeming to be impressed with my use of the professional murder lingo. He says, “It’s risky to take out a person like me. That hit may not even have been authorized. Anyway, it’s not like we’ll be entirely alone.”
I think about it, instantly worried. You know about the KGB shadowing me, probably shadowing him too, and Dragunov, with a whole second squad of goons maybe shadowing them.
And before I can worry about it too much longer, Jon explains. “I’ve got some special operatives I’ve already arranged to shadow me. They won’t be intrusive, but they’ll be around.”
“You’ve got people undercover, private security?” I instantly review the past weeks. What could they have seen me do? Who could they have seen me talking to?
Knowing this could be very bad for me, I wait for Jon to explain further, so I’ll know if I’m off the hook or hoist upon my own petard.
Jon says, “They’re not mine, per se. I made a call, put ‘em on kind of a standby basis. Just think of it as a little extra protection.”
“Like an insurance policy.”
He kisses my hand and a tiny charge trills up my arm, hairs standing up on the back of my neck. He says, “Exactly.”
We visit the monuments; Lincoln’s determined glare cutting through the ages and beyond; Jefferson, standing in frozen eloquence; Washington’s ivory spire. The tour reminds me of the statues in Moscow, the stone saints of the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Basilica, which I’d seen pictures of as a child. America seems to be taking its place for me among those ancient empires, as surely as it has taken its place among the current giants on the world stage,
I watch Jon gazing at these monuments, which speak even more clearly to him than to me. His smile melts away and he gazes solemnly, reverently, as if in the presence of the men these monuments only invoke. Yet, he seems sensitive to their presence from beyond the grave. He seems to have an insight, visions, that give him greater perspective, a peek behind the curtain of life’s mysteries.
But I share that same gift. And I know its curses and so, I know, does Jon. It’s another thing we have in common, another bond that draws and holds us together.
And I hope it always will.
He takes me dancing, but not to the loud clubs I’d visited weeks before. He spins me across the dance floor of an elegant ballroom, where ladies and gentlemen in the finest evening wear twirl and flutter in a kind of aristocratic ballet.
Jon is masterful, handsome and dignified and in control has he leads me in dance steps that date back to the earliest years of European civilization, courtship rituals that have survived the test of time virtually unchanged.
The Tango.
The Flamenco.
My body is his to command, guiding me in steps that have traced the journeys of a million lovers before us, and will keep doing so for the millions of lovers that will follow. The music pulses through me, my legs strong as they match Jon’s steps, my shoulders bouncy and committed, my hair flying around my head as I snap and spin and dip.
He takes me to bed, and my body is his to command once more. My skin thrills to his touch, waves of pleasure coursing through me, sending electricity to dance along my nerves, fingers grasping and trembling and finding thick stalks of his blonde hair, pulling it with just enough force to make him react.
I squeeze tight around him, my ankles locking behind the small of his back. I pull him in deeper, feeling his massive manhood pushing my tissues away, his increasing vigor and speed pushing me to greater heights. My senses are on hyper-alert; the smell of our bodies fills my nostrils, releasing primal instincts that society cannot temper. The feel of his toned body above me, beneath me, behind me, has goosebumps jumping along the backs of my arms, the sweet pressure of his insistent and incessant pounding dominating my world, locking out everything and everyone else.
My mouth is wet and warm with his saliva, his tongue flicking and roaming around that unseen cavern, and the other as well. None of my lips go without his wondrous attention; neither of my fleshy pink tongues need long for his touch, his seductive coaxing of heat and hurry, buck and moan, wriggle and writhe. My thighs press against the sides of his head, his ears and hair tickling me.
I feel his hands roving my body, his lips kissing and sucking on my clit, his hands caressing my breasts and tongue between my legs. He finds my pussy hole, his fingers wet from me; he sticks one finger inside. I groan, and he gently pumps it in and out. I never knew fingers could make me feel so good. He sucks on my clit wrapping his lips around the small nub, capturing it and twirling his tongue around it while continuing to suck hard and fast. My hips and body buck like an animal. I can’t get away from the intensity of the sensations he’s brought out in me; I don’t want to get away. I let out small moans, writing under his expert touch.
My spine tenses and turns, my body twisting around it. But for all my sensual motion, there is nowhere to go, nor anywhere I’d rather be. As much as I push away from him, I am trying to get closer to him. As I squirm and slide under his passionate pummeling, I am working my way closer to him.
As he pushes into me, I wrap around him, the two of us becoming a single, slick creature; a panting, pouncing beast with every moment of evolution gathering behind it, spilling over to wipe out the mere totems of our civilization and return us to the forest primeval; before language, before ceremony, before society and even before humanity. There are no words, only grunting and huffing and groaning, the churning of every instinctual need, every base hunger, every animalistic craving.
My body is beaded with sweat, my groans filling the room as he stands up, angling my pussy so that he can push his hulking shaft into me filling me; the volume of one dictated by the mass of the other. I clamp my eyes shut, teeth gritted, lips pulled tight
as he moves in and out faster, above me and within me, my loins clamping down and holding onto his strident staff as he pushes me and pushes into me; deeper and harder and longer, until the blur of his unseen shaft is battering me from the inside, my walls having long since crumbled to his fleshy invasion.
I fall in my entirety, no resistance to the violent overthrow of my person to this warrior king. He has won me and I am his forever, my quivering hips and the shaking of my body tell me that there is no longer any choice for me. I have abandoned that choice in favor of my fate, which I know lay with this man as surely as I do, and will continue to do; as long and as often as is possible.
I can’t live without him now.
I try to go about my business at his offices, but I can’t help but search him out in the din and confusion of the daily activities. At night, I can’t stop thinking about his amazing touch, his heat, his smell, his taste.
Him.
Later that week I am privileged to see Jon address the senate for the first time. He stands in his dark blue suit in a gold-striped tie I’d picked out for him.
“This bill concerning waste management has become infected with the corruption of organized crime.”
His voice is strong, his delivery is measured, steady. His oratory compares to his love-making; a well-controlled escalation from certainty toward sanctity.
“This bill is rife with compromise which could be detrimental to the health and commonwealth of the people of the United States. I propose a bill with stricter control, greater regulation of disposal practices, a more thorough venting of candidates.”
I know even as I hear him speak that this is the bill he was trying to offer the mafia, that he was either handing them a bill of goods he knew wasn’t going to hold up, which would set him up for certain death as a betrayer; or he was willing to give the mafia unregulated control of waste management on the east coast of the United States as a fair trade for staying out of politics on the federal level. But what intrigues me is how we could use these clearly compromising circumstances to strengthen his own position and, in this case at least, do the right thing and rally the powers of his government against a known menace.
