www.RayGregory.com

 

 

 

 

Rightful Heir

 

by Ray Gregory

 

 

 

Fifty-eight year old Senator Blake Rushmore (Republican, Texas) stepped to the lectern with his full head of wavy chestnut hair perfectly coiffed, his strong chin and square jaw set for action. When he tapped on the microphone, a platinum, Texas-shaped cufflink flashed in the hot lights. His deep Texas drawl that followed — “Everybody hear me?” — added folksy spice to his palpable intelligence and sophistication.

     Rumors of homosexuality had dogged Blake Rushmore throughout his three terms in the United States Senate. But the tales of sordid, hushed encounters with other men had always been less than substantive. They’d only nipped at the popular senator’s heels as he’d kicked them aside, sending them yelping without breaking his stride. “Scurrilous smear tactics,” he liked to call them, usually with a tired smirk, “testaments to my political enemies’ desperation.”

     To his staunchly conservative voter base, as well as most of the rest of his Texas constituency, tall, craggy Senator Rushmore neither looked nor acted gay. Of course, he was a member of the high-rolling Dallas elite, but under all the polish and glamour he seemed all Texan, all man. He was right at home on horseback in his campaign ads, riding high in the saddle in rawhide chaps and tooled-leather boots and waving a custom Stetson. To the voters of Texas, Senator Blake Rushmore was as manly a man as they come.

     But now, a clean-cut student from Georgetown University had come forward. The photogenic young man’s lurid tale of an encounter with the senator in a men’s room at an Arlington shopping mall had dominated the news cycle. Senator Rushmore called a televised news conference to answer the accusations himself, to state once and for all that he was not gay, that he was certainly not into “the kind of depravity alleged by this put-up little pervert”.

     The senator handled himself with customary aplomb at the microphone. He was adamant and fittingly indignant. After all, his young accuser’s only tangible evidence was a single, poorly lit, out-of-focus cell phone photo of someone matching the senator’s general description. But the man in the photo was in a fully zipped windbreaker and a baseball cap, the brim pulled low. He was hunched in a men’s room stall reaching to pull up his pants. This might have seemed like an innocent enough maneuver in a restroom stall, except that the photographer, whose free hand rested on the guy’s back, was obviously in the stall with him. But even with high-tech photo enhancement, the person’s identity was far from conclusive. It was plain to the average, jaded TV viewer that even the most expert crime scene investigators, depending on their own political biases, could disagree.

     Sure enough, next-day polling of his constituency showed the senator had beaten the rap again, even as late-night TV comics had a heyday. Cynical pundits branded this the senator’s closest call yet.

 

#

 

Three days later a video surfaced on a sleazy exposé blog before going viral. In it Senator Rushmore was having torrid sex in a hotel room, torrid heterosexual sex with his beautiful twenty-nine-year-old wife. The video was long enough and graphic enough to leave no doubt about either’s identity, or their sexual prowess. In it the senator was impressively athletic, and his hot, young wife, notably appreciative. One ogling TV comic quipped, “See the ‘Rushmores get a room’ video? Talk about bringing home the pork…. And did you see his wife? If that’s what even the gay guys get in Texas, think of how a straight schmuck like me could do down there.”

     Senator Rushmore’s people were quick to blame the embarrassing video on his political enemies. The senator, with his young wife at his side, made a statement on the steps of his Washington brownstone.

     “Family,” he said, his voice gruff with indignation and heroically contained exasperation, “is the most important thing of all. And family starts with the God-given love between a husband and wife, and yes, the physical expression of that love. One flesh, as the Good Book says. What’s on that video was intimate and private, between a loving husband and wife. It apparently took place in a New York City hotel my wife and I stayed in when I was up there last year speaking to some folks from Wall Street. I’m used to this kind of treachery from my enemies, but I’m outraged they would stoop to humiliating my dear, lovely wife.”

     Then he hugged and kissed his beautiful young wife.

 

#

 

Tendra Rushmore, a leggy, Hispanic beauty, with jet-black hair and dizzying cheekbones, stood tall by her husband on the granite steps of their brownstone. The tropical turquoise of her impeccably tailored suit perfectly complemented her tawny coloring, while matching, lofty-heeled sandals boosted her height almost to that of the imposing senator. The ruffled, silk blouse that peeked through her jacket offered a hint of breathless cleavage, her snug skirt a dazzling vista of sleek knees and calves and ankles. She hadn’t wanted to show anything of herself — especially her face — but her media-savvy husband had laid everything out for her that morning, including the pushup bra. He’d been uncompromising too, reminding her that she only had to be there and smile, that he would do all the talking.

     “Image is everything. Eyes level, chin up. Be proud. You — we — have nothing to hide.”

     Nothing left to hide, she’d thought.

     “Remember,” he’d added, “you’re my wife. I was only doing what every one of those pricks wishes he could do.”

     At least her hair was in a bun now, the way she typically wore it in public. And she was safely ensconced behind her matching, black, horn-rimmed glasses. She’d always relied on such touches to highlight her braininess, but her looks were hard to downplay. Whatever she did only seemed to stoke men’s fantasies more: Just wait till she lets that hair down, till she flings off those glasses! And now, with that steamy video everywhere? With her long, raven hair flailing and thrashing? The panting vixen shaking her…?

     Tendra strained to keep from flinching as Blake hugged her in the sunlight — as her almost twice-her-age husband barely kept from beaming with pride. She cringed as he answered the reporters’ demeaning questions.

     “Of course we didn’t know we were being video taped,” the senator growled at a reporter from a notoriously liberal TV news outfit. “But I will find out who’s behind it,” and he raised a clenched fist.

     A reporter from a rightwing weekly paper shouted, “Does this video put that hustler from Georgetown’s story to bed for good now, Senator?”

     “I would think so,” the senator huffed, “and not in my bed.” He nodded smugly as most of the reporters chuckled. A quick, homey wit was his well-worn trademark. “And by the way,” he pointed out, “This video should be ample proof that my wife and I are one-hundred-percent committed to starting new family. Come here, Ten.” He pulled her to him again and gave her another hug and peck on the cheek. He seemed to love calling her Ten, especially in public — Ten as in “Perfect Ten,” in case anyone hadn’t noticed. Then he put on his sternest face and glared squarely into the lenses. “Homosexuality is a decision, a decision of the soul. I think it’s obvious it’s not my decision.”

 

#

 

Ron Lamore, the senator’s dapper, fast-talking chief of staff, led the counter attack. He was everywhere, from Limbaugh’s radio show to Meet the Press, spinning the video’s release as a tactical blunder on the part of the senator’s political enemies. Their attack had backfired too, Ron claimed, thanks to the frank and brave way the senator had stood up to the challenge. Ron claimed the senator had demolished the embarrassment of that video by owning up to it immediately, without the hint of cover-up. He dismissed all talk of the senator having anything to do with its release as beneath contempt, beyond the pale of rational consideration and decency. “That — that kid from Georgetown has only outed himself, as a sleazy little liar. The real question is who’s he working for, who’s paying him.”

      Ron and the senator’s staff circled the wagons around the sanctity of the marital bed. Concerning what the senator and his young wife did on the video, Ron pointed out that it was a picture worth a thousand words, and not one of them gay. The all-heterosexual sex, as steamy as it was, was exclusively between husband and wife, in a marriage sanctified by God. What other married couple hadn’t done the same things in the privacy of their bedroom? — and done them only half as well, Ron pointed out with pride. When confronted with the obvious question, namely why the senator’s enemies would release a video that only bolstered his claim that he was not gay, Ron cited that in itself as evidence of his enemies’ utter deviousness: they’d obviously wanted to make it look like the senator had released it himself.

     As Tendra watched Ron ply his trade on TV, she realized he was the most cutthroat political operator she’d ever met. Many a time she’d seen him glad-hand his way through a cocktail party leaving a trail of innuendo and suspicion in his wake, along with someone’s ruined career. Now his sights were set on that bright, young student from Georgetown.

     But Tendra remembered what happened on that video too. It was a memory she’d even cherished ¾ until now. All that night the senator had been so attentive to her — at dinner, then in the cab, then the hotel room. It’d been as if he’d wanted to recapture the lost magic from when he’d wooed her. Even during the sex he’d whispered how much he loved her — in actual words instead of grunts. She remembered how much she’d loved it too, how flattered she’d felt. And oh, how she’d responded! — as everyone in the world now with Internet access could plainly see — and pause and replay ad nauseam.

     How ridiculously needy his parceled-out attentions had left her, she realized. She’d sensed he’d been performing that night, but she’d always wondered why? Why the romantic theatrics, even the athletics? Had he been trying to prove himself worthy of such an adoring young wife? Had he realized how much he’d been taking her for granted? Sure, that’s what she’d wanted to believe. But more likely, she’d realized later, he’d been trying to prove something to himself. He was, after all, a U.S. senator. The narcissism and egotism were part and parcel. But whatever he’d been thinking, it’d been thrilling just to go along with the dreamy delusion.

     The strangest thing that night had been the sex itself. He hadn’t taken her from behind! His bedtime attentions had dwindled to once a week soon after their honeymoon, and even then, it was always…. Had he finally realized his favorite way wasn’t hers? It wasn’t that she considered that position demeaning — she even found it exciting sometimes — but practically every time? She’d started wondering if he couldn’t bear to see her face during sex. Was she that disappointing to him, that boring?

     But then, for the video’s grand finale, he’d even coaxed her on top of him, astride him. If there was one thing she knew for sure, Blake was no breast man. Unlike practically every other man she’d ever met, his eyes never lingered in her cleavage — except, of course, when he appraised the camera impact of a bra he’d chosen for her. But that night, as she’d rode him, he’d pressed her buttons perfectly again. He couldn’t wait to see her nurse their baby, he’d whispered, even taste her himself. Even she’d been surprised at how shamelessly that had turned her on. When he’d asked her to shake her tits, whispered it so admiringly, so lovingly…. Oh, how she’d reveled in his stares! “Shake ‘em, baby, shake ‘em” — right, for the whole goddamned world to see.

     And now he was telling even her his political enemies were behind that video, that they’d planned all along to accuse him of releasing it. How convenient, the hidden camera catching him in such rare, attentive form. Adoring whispers instead of his usual grunts? Her riding him. How better to play an old white guy doing a young Latina in nearly half-Hispanic Texas? No jefe Anglo, white-on-brown doggie action for that demographic.

     She’d been trained as a scientist, for Christ’s sake, not a fool! She had a B.S. in sociology, a masters in political science, earning full scholarships all the way. Her studies had been her life, objective analysis of the data her ideal. But had her academic bent, and gullible open-mindedness, left her unprepared for real-world treachery? Even now she wondered if she’d jumped to conclusions. But if there was one thing she had learned — maybe the hard way too — it was that her intuition was suspect, the truth wasn’t always obvious.

     She’d been fresh out of grad school when she’d joined Senator Rushmore’s staff as an analyst, just in time for his third-term campaign. She hadn’t been much older than that earnest, young gay college student from Georgetown when she’d first met the senator. In a strange way, that innocent-looking kid had even reminded her of herself. Back then she’d believed in Blake Rushmore, at least in the classical conservative underpinnings of his politics, though certainly not in all the pandering, “social conservative” crap. Sure, his anti-intellectual posturing could be an embarrassment. Seeing him cozy up to Bible-thumping evolution-deniers disgusted her. But according to him, being a serious champion of fiscal responsibility and pragmatic, efficient governance just wasn’t sexy enough to awe the voters.

     But what about leadership? Why not guide them, educate them? she’d urged when she’d become his wife — his young and naive wife, he’d said, claiming he had to pick his fights, he couldn’t change everything. “Let ‘em have their quaint beliefs if that’s what makes ‘em happy.”

     But unlike the voters, and her jaded husband and all his staunch supporters, she couldn’t just turn her back on the facts. Had no one else on his side of the political divide noticed how convincing that gay college kid was? Or how unconvincing that video was?

 

#

 

Tendra stepped from the elevator in a droopy, wide-brim hat and a modest, dark-slate pants suit and flats. She slid off the over-size sunglasses she’d been wearing everywhere since that video had come out. She glanced at the bronze script on a lush mahogany door at the end of the hall: Casey Lansing, Investigations.

     Rosa, her friend from the gym — maybe her best friend in Washington — had recommended Casey Lansing to her. Rosa had gone through her own divorce just last year, from a high-octane congressional lobbyist. According to her, Casey could read people like a psychic. She’d seen through Rosa’s ex, got the goods on him in no time, uncovered all his hidden finances. It’d been thanks to Casey that Rosa now called her ex “the piñata that keeps on giving”.

     Rosa had hugged Tendra, then looked her straight in the eye. “You’ve been way too trusting, Ten, but don’t worry. You can trust Casey. You’ll see.”

     The receptionist showed Tendra to Casey’s office, where it was a welcome relief to slide into a comfortable easy chair. Tendra rocked her hips, rooting snugly into the plump cushion. She kneaded the stuffed arms with her nails. Here I am, she thought. It’s finally come to this. But there was something about Casey’s office, she realized. She felt calm and safe for a change. It was like a cozy little private feminine oasis amidst all the cold stone and steel and glass of downtown Washington. An elegant writing desk was the only clue that it even was an office. Everything was so soft and warm and relaxing: the plush carpeting and drapes and upholstery; lush, flowering plants in earthen pots; even the paintings. She wasn’t that knowledgeable about art, except for a couple of undergrad survey courses she’d taken, but this stuff reminded her of the sensuality of Georgia O’Keeffe, though even more mesmerizing, like Georgia tripping on some very mellow psychedelic. If Casey did interior decorating on the side, Tendra thought, she’d hire her for that too.

     When Casey walked in she was slight and wiry, and shorter than Tendra had expected, about five-four, Tendra figured. She was much younger looking too, barely older than Tendra in fact. With her short, flaxen hair and pale skin, Casey seemed both the ethnic and physical opposites of tall, dark Tendra.

     Casey’s pale-gray eyes seemed to draw Tendra in. They told her it was all right to open up, they’d seen it all before. And open up Tendra did, without reservation, pouring herself into Casey’s unflinching gaze. As Tendra spoke, dabbing at her tears, she felt the concern in Casey’s eyes. They narrowed in recognition or sympathy, widened with insight, almost as if they were Tendra’s own eyes. The thoughtful “hmm” of Casey’s voice was music to Tendra’s ears. For the first time since that video had jolted her world, she felt truly understood, even protected.

     When Casey asked about beginnings, how Tendra had got into the tawdry mess she was in, Tendra sighed, long and hard. She said she’d never been really anxious about marriage, even though she’d always wanted to be a mother and have a family. But she’d never been desperate or crazed about men the way most of the girls around her had. She’d always been content to wait for the right man to come along. People — even total strangers — had always told her how beautiful she was. The boys she’d known, then the men, had always been impressed. But she’d always kept them at bay. It’d been easy to come across as aloof to the unsure guys her age, even cold to the ones most testy about rejection. She would wait for the inevitable. She’d promised herself her Mr. Right would be someone special. She’d had no idea what he would look like, or if she’d even recognize him. But she’d had the gut feeling someday he’d find her — and let her know what the rest of her life would be like. Maybe that’s why she’d been so unconcerned, why so able to devote herself so readily to academic achievement. That vague notion of someday had always been enough.

     Then — sure enough! it’d seemed at the time — along had come Senator Blake Rushmore: wise, handsome, wealthy, powerful — everything! He’d seemed like a dream, like any woman’s dream husband. And as for his age, that had seemed like the most superficial concern imaginable. He kept up with guys decades younger. Tendra admitted she’d been a sucker for strength and security, things the senator oozed from every pore. Her Chicano father and mother too, the owners of a small chain of bodegas — five stores — and themselves ten years younger than the senator, had been overwhelmed with pride. Their beautiful but bookish daughter the wife of the United States senator from Texas! Could she possibly have done anything more wonderful to please them?

     It’d been a lightning courtship too. The great man had so charmed her that she’d blinded herself to the awkward way he’d wooed her. After all, he was a man’s man, and he’d been married to such a distant, untouchable woman for so long. When he’d finally dumped his elegant, blond first wife, her replacement, Tendra, had been right there on his staff. The voters loved to see a politician with a pretty young wife on his arm. And what a perfect, ethnically inclusive match for forty-percent-Hispanic Texas! She wondered now if he’d consulted a focus group before he’d popped the question.

     What had sealed the deal was a child. Her parents had been even more thrilled than she at the prospect. Tendra having the rich, famous senator’s baby, their grandchild! The senator had been so upfront about it too: He wanted a son. He had two grown, adopted daughters — since his first wife had been infertile — both of them Hispanic, one even a year older than Tendra. But he’d finally decided he wanted “a real heir” to carry on his name, even his persona. He’d been completely open about his ambitions for his son, and touchingly vulnerable too. What a heady compliment! Tendra had wanted to hold him, cuddle him, just as she would his baby boy.

     And oh, his dream, the intoxicating panorama of it! Her, the mother of a future president! President Blake Rushmore, Jr.! She was perfect for the role too, he’d assured her. Her first-rate mind and stunning looks combined with his own formidable genetic legacy would guarantee their son to be the ideal candidate for the nation’s rapidly transforming demographics.

     Blake Rushmore was nothing if not an astute political prognosticator. As he’d said, why not optimize his son’s advantages? Why not an ethno-cultural leg up as well as everything else the Rushmore name, fortune, and prestige could offer? The father would get things rolling, instill the inclination to leadership and power, both genetically and by example. But at his age — barring some sudden, miraculous, medical discovery that might extend life expectancy — he’d never live to see his son in the White House.

     But Tendra could be trusted to oversee his legacy, political and financial, and guide their son to his destiny. So when the senator himself, in his passable Spanish, had told her parents about his dream — ¡el presidente, vuestro nieto! — how could they, how could she, have said no?

     “That was the clincher,” Tendra said sheepishly now to Casey, “the promise, the baby.”

     “I take it you’re still not pregnant,” Casey said. Without waiting for Tendra’s response, she added, “No offense intended, but even if he actually wants that son, the trying’s gotta be an ordeal.” She huffed and shook her head, then sighed to clear the air.

     She’d already done her homework, she said, contacted all her sources. She’d seen Tendra on TV, standing by her man. She’d seen that video too, and “like everyone else with a pulse,” felt for her. “This sort of thing hardly even counts as news anymore in D.C., another trusting wife, another politician husband.” She stared intently into Tendra’s eyes and asked her if she’d had any inkling of her husband’s flings with men.

     Tendra shook her head and sniffled. “Just look at him. Gay?”

     Casey’s eyes softened. She reached to give Tendra’s hand a reassuring squeeze. She’d been married herself once, Casey said, to an up-and-coming guy in the Justice Department. He was a glib, handsome hunk, just like the senator, and quite a gay basher too. “Though my ex wasn’t as craggy. He was more the young Rock Hudson type.” She sniffed. “He thought he was something too, with all his connections. By the time it was over,” she sniffed again, “he was happy just to shove off without a squeak. It was the least he could do to keep my close-ups of his face and another guy’s dick from seeing the light of day.”

     Casey stood up as the late-afternoon glow from the windows behind her desk silhouetted her lean body.

     “My ex swears to this day he’s not gay. According to him, he’s a man of the world and more sophisticated than your average American male. He’s convinced rolling around with other guys is just buddy/buddy high jinks, the grown-up equivalent of boyhood rough and tumble, nothing gay about it. That’s how these guys think: If it’s all male, with nothing frilly or effeminate, it simply isn’t gay.” Casey shook her head. “Gotta more fun to play with their buddies in the tree house than dealing with a grown-up woman in a real house.”

     She got up and walked around the desk, then pulled up a chair and sat down in front of Tendra, their knees almost touching. “Look, I’ll be frank with you. Your husband’s arrogance has got the best of him. I’m talking Greek tragedy-class hubris here. It’s just a matter of time before he self-destructs. Your best bet is to get the goods on him before anyone else does, let him know you’re holding the winning hand. That’s the only way you’ll be able to write your own ticket, and keep from getting dragged down with him. Remember, he owes you big time for that video stunt.”

     Tendra lowered her eyes. “I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I guess — I guess he was behind that video, even though it was a year ago?”

    “Of course. You doubt it? Still? That video was his insurance policy. He was sitting on it till he needed it.”

     Tendra stared at her knees. She caught her breath. “The baby was why I kept hoping, even though nothing’s happened. But — but now I wonder if it was his ex-wife or him who couldn’t have children.”

     Casey shook her head. She reached to pat Tendra’s thigh. “You’re doing the right thing. Sometimes you have to get down and dirty to disinfect. Best to get it over with and behind you. Believe me, I know these guys, and they don’t change. Your husband’s too far gone. He just can’t resist the reckless thrill. A big, messy splat’s inevitable, and you don’t wanna be around for the clean-up.”

     “How could I have been so — blind? A baby? All his talk about family? Family values?”

     “The funny thing is, guys like your husband bring it all on themselves. You’d think the way they are — really are — would give them some understanding, even some compassion. What a schizoid trip they’re on!”

     Tendra nodded and sniffled again. “I’ve got nothing against gay — gays. I’m not some moralistic bonehead. If my husband’s gay, so be it. I just wish he’d been honest with me, honest with himself. I feel so — foolish, so used.”

     Casey got up. She stood next to Tendra’s chair, put her hand on Tendra’s shoulder. “Everything’s going to be fine. You need to be strong now. You have to protect yourself, and you’ve come to the right place.”

     “Thanks.” Tendra absently pressed her cheek to Casey’s hand before flinching. “Sorry.”

     Casey smiled. She brushed Tendra’s hair from her eyes. “Look, we girls gotta stick together now that even the gay guys are trying to screw us.”

     They both smiled.

     “It’s almost six,” Casey said. “We’ve got planning to do. There’s a quiet little place down the block where we can grab some dinner.”

 

#

 

Two weeks later Casey had pinned pin down the senator’s cruising habits. She and Tendra waited now in the back of a van full of electronic surveillance equipment. It was parked across the street from a large shopping mall in Alexandria.

     “He’s headed for the restroom now,” Casey said into her mike as she adjusted her headset. “Get to the urinal.” Then she turned to Tendra with a thumbs up. “We’ll catch him with his pants down — no excuses, no doubts this time.” She laid her hand on Tendra’s and said, “You all right?”

     “Yes,” Tendra said hesitantly. “I guess I’m just about to get an education — maybe a real one.”

     Casey smiled. “Look,” she said, back to business now as she pointed at one of the monitors before them, “the Muffin’s in place. Pretty inviting, huh?” She chuckled.

     The guy was a young, gay actor and aspiring playwright Casey knew. He was in jeans and a hoodie, the hood down. He was standing at a urinal. Casey had even kept a straight face when she’d told Tendra his codename — from studmuffin, of course.  Casey’d said she liked to keep everything on a need-to-know basis, and she said Tendra didn’t need or want to know his real name. Casey’s cloak-and-dagger theatrics were amusing, Tendra thought, but she bowed to Casey’s obvious professionalism.

     Whatever his real name, the Muffin was textbook handsome, and quick-witted and convincing — all perfect attributes for the job, according to Casey. He looked almost like a much younger version of Blake Rushmore himself, with a similar build, even coloring. He seemed barely older than that gay kid from Georgetown who’d tried to expose Blake. When Casey had approached the Muffin about the job, he’d joked he’d gladly do it for nothing, but since she’d said the money would ultimately come from the hypocritical, gay-bashing senator’s substantial fortune, the Muffin had said he could hardly refuse just compensation.

     What if he were her husband? Tendra thought, studying the Muffin on the monitor. What if she and Blake had been the same age, if she’d met him when he’d been that young and fresh, long before Blake had got into politics — and maybe all the rest? Would it have made a difference? Could it have? Did he really believe that stuff he said in his speeches, about being gay being a choice? Really? And if he did, why? Why would he…? But even if he weren’t gay, would that have even mattered? Was it only him? Maybe she wasn’t right for marriage either.

     “Okay, let’s reel him in,” Casey said. She stared at another monitor with a wide-angle shot of the men’s room. This particular men’s room was one of the senator’s regular cruising spots, Casey’d said. One of her people had trailed him there three times in the past two weeks. Just as Casey had said before, it was amazing how these guys figured they became magically anonymous as soon as they crossed the Beltway or the Potomac.

     Tendra stared at it too, just as hard. The Muffin looked all business now at the urinal with both hands occupied. Then Blake walked in. He was in a zipped windbreaker, darker than the one in the college kid’s photo, and with a knit watch cap now, pulled down to his eyebrows. Tendra had never seen him wear such a thing before.

     “Longshoreman chic. Guess he’s going for the On the Waterfront look tonight, ” Casey quipped, as if reading Tendra’s mind.

     Tendra watched her husband pause just inside the restroom door. He studied the Muffin, whose free hand was cocked against his hip, the thumb hooking his waistband. It was a sign, Casey said, a sign the experienced senator surely recognized — the Muffin had pegged the senator’s preferences perfectly, Casey added. The kid was buff, all right, a real hunk. The much older man was obviously impressed. He headed for the next urinal. Elbow to elbow now, they seemed to be straining out of the corners of their eyes to check each other out.

     “So,” Blake turned to the Muffin, “when did you graduate from the police academy.” His voice couldn’t have been clearer as he spoke into the mike the Muffin was wearing. The senator’s jockular smirk was just as clear on the screen Casey and Tendra watched.

     “Not before they taught me how to do this,” the Muffin said with a wide grin. He turned to Blake to reveal a straining erection.

     “Jeezus, you need a glove for that?” Blake said about to reach into his pocket.

     “Nope.” The Muffin flashed a condom of his own. He ripped the wrapper open with his teeth and moved to a stall. Blake followed him in. It was the last one in the row, by the wall, with a microcam already in place. The image was great too, nothing like the grainy cellphone pic the Georgetown kid had come away with.

     Tendra watched, stunned as Blake rolled the condom on the Muffin. It was like some shabby porn flick. Then Blake hastily unbuckled and unzipped and yanked his pants down. He turned to grasp the top edge of the stall door, swaying his back.

     “Gotcha, Mofo,” Casey blurted. “It’s a wrap.” She rung the Muffin, whose cell phone was set on vibrate, his cue to make his break.

     “He wants it like — that? From behind?” Tendra said.

     “Nothing unusual there,” Casey said. “The powerful ones get off on the table-turning roll-playing stuff. That’s D.C., twisted top to bottom.”

     Then Blake groaned. It sounded just like in that hotel room, Tendra thought. She felt sick.

     “What?! He’s in him?” Casey said, wide-eyed. “What the…? Dammit! He’s not supposed to actually do him.”

     She called the Muffin on his cell phone again: his sign to break things off, zip up, scoot — even pretend he was going to hurl if he had to, anything to just get out. But he ignored the phone’s tingle in his pocket again, thrusting even harder.

     “Like it? Like that?” he growled in Blake’s ear.

     “Oh, yeaaah!” Blake moaned, straining rearward, his hands whiteknuckled clutching the stall door.

     “I bet you do,” the Muffin said lustily, “you fucking hypocrite!” He gave Blake a ram that made him shriek.

     “Fuck you!” Blake spat. He jerked away, then spun, spearing an elbow into the Muffin’s ribs. Then he grabbed the stunned younger man by the neck of his hoodie, then yanked open the stall door and hauled him out, slinging him to the floor. Blake Rushmore was obviously more than just a seasoned political infighter. He kicked the Muffin repeatedly and hard as he tried to grope his way back into the stall. Tendra scrunched, gasping. She could feel the kicks herself.

     “You nelly fairy! Come on to me?!” Blake yelled, tucking in his shirttails, buckling his belt, as he continued kicking. But as he zipped his fly in mid kick, his feet rocketed out from under him. His left temple crashed into the chrome hand blower on the wall as he careened down. His neck banged the edge of the faux-marble countertop. His full mass slammed hard on the slick tile floor.

     Casey called the Muffin again. The young man was up on his knees now, wincing and moaning as he felt his ribs.

     “Yeah, yeah,” he answered Casey’s frantic questions, fumbling with his cell phone, leaning over Blake. “He’s breathing, funny though — I dunno, he — he’s out cold. He doesn’t look good. Oh, God! No!” The Muffin’s whole body shook.

     Casey took complete charge now, her voice firm: “Leave the condom on. Zip yourself up, your hoodie too, pull it low over your face, put your sunglasses on.” She glanced back at the downed senator. “Wait, wait. Take that cap he’s wearing. Take it. That’s it, now put it on, pull it down to your eyes, pull your hood over it too. Good. Now gather up the cameras, quick. Don’t forget the one in the stall. That’s it. Put ‘em in your pockets. Good, good. Now walk out, slowly, face down. Keep your face down. You’re caught up in a phone conversation — with me. Walk slowly down the corridor, nonchalant, distracted.”

     Then she saw a guy in a suit approaching, heading for the men’s room — there was one last camera, still in the hallway, stuck on the wall in a corner facing down the corridor toward the men’s room door.

     “I’m your boyfriend, okay?” she told the Muffin. “Call me honey, say you love me.” But the other guy was absorbed in his own cell phone conversation. He apparently didn’t even notice the Muffin. “Great,” Casey said when he walked by. “He’ll call it in, don’t worry.”

     She had the Muffin snatch the last microcam from the corner just before he turned out of the corridor.

     “Help!” The guy in the suit suddenly screamed, running out the men’s room door.

     “Keep walking,” Casey told the Muffin as a curious maintenance man rushed past him. She kept talking calmly to the Muffin as she climbed up front into the driver’s seat.

     Tendra remained in the back, petrified with fright, but astounded by Casey’s cool. Casey kept the Muffin going, buoying his confidence as he walked slowly out the nearest exit. Then she directed him down the street and around the corner to where she’d pick him up. She told Tendra to stay in the back, behind the curtain hiding the surveillance equipment. She was not to reveal herself to the Muffin under any circumstances.

     Casey slowed the van, barely stopping. The Muffin slid into the passenger seat up front, then she drove off.

     “What were you thinking?” Casey demanded.

     The shaken young man broke down immediately. He hadn’t planned it, he said. When he’d seen the senator it’d just happened. “That hypocrite, I just wanted to make him…. I dunno, I just…. I never wanted to hurt him, not like that.” He sobbed like a baby. “Oh, God! I should never have left him, I …. We’ve got to go back.”

     Tendra, still crouched in the rear, wanted to hold him, mother him. His rage, his fear, and then — his compassion! She wept silently, knowing how he felt — exactly. But she remained behind the curtain, out of sight as Casey had instructed.

     Casey stopped the van to calm the Muffin down. Paramedics were on the scene already, she said, pointing to her headset — she was tuned to the emergency frequency. The senator had been stabilized. They were taking him to a hospital now.

     “It wasn’t your fault,” she said firmly, staring into the Muffin’s eyes. “He attacked you. You were on the floor. He was kicking the shit outta you, remember? Him falling was the only thing that saved you.”

     She drove the Muffin to his walk-up, then told him to take a hot shower, have a drink, just chill, rest. She’d call him in a little while, let him know what was happening with the senator.

     “I want to meet him — later,” Tendra said, parting the curtain, watching the Muffin stumble up the steps to his building. “We’re all in this together.”

 

#

 

Tendra walked into the hospital lobby with an entourage: Casey by her side, followed by one of Casey’s assistants and two bodyguards and a lawyer supplied by Casey.

     Ron Lamore, her husband’s chief of staff, immediately approached Tendra.

     “Thank God, they found you,” Ron said. He reached for Tendra’s hands, but they remained by her sides. Ron seemed unfazed. “I sent someone to the townhouse as soon as I heard.” Then he shook his head, maybe the gravest headshake ever. In a hushed voice he said, “He’s in surgery now. A top-notch team too. They called in some really big names, but it’s…. You’ve got to be strong, Tendra, for him. It looks — well, like paralysis, maybe brain damage too.”

     “What happened?” Tendra said evenly.

     “They’re not sure.” Ron shook his head again. He pursed his lips. Now he seemed a paragon of perplexity. “Someone found him on the floor, unconscious,” he stepped in close to whisper, “in a restroom in a shopping mall in Alexandria. The police tried to talk to him before he went into surgery, but they couldn’t get anything. The doctors cut it short. The cops said a security camera caught a guy leaving the restroom just before the senator was found, but they aren’t even sure of his race.” Ron huffed. “He was wearing one of those hooded things, you know, like they all wear, plus those wraparound sunglasses — another favorite fashion statement from the hood.” Ron sighed. “I have no idea why he would have been at that mall.”

     “None, Ron?” Tendra said with a firm voice and piercing stare. It was time Ron realized she wasn’t a fool — no longer anyway. But as much as she despised Ron Lamore, she realized she could need him yet. He was competent and well-connected, and Washington being what it was, keeping him on her side was the smart thing to do. “I’ll call you when we know more, Ron. We’ll decide then where we’re headed.”

     Ron bowed and backed off. He seemed impressed. He obviously appreciated the power and authority a fallen senator’s wife could wield, especially one as photogenic and popular as Tendra Rushmore.

 

#

 

Two days later Tendra visited her husband in intensive care. He had a crushed cervical vertebra, a C-3 lesion, that had left him paralyzed from the neck down. Permanent quadriplegia. He needed a ventilator to breathe. A severe left-brain subdural hematoma had left him unable to speak, probably permanent too. His slurred groans were unintelligible. He understood spoken words, but he couldn’t put them together himself in speech.

     Tendra squeezed Blake’s hand. When everyone else left the room, she whispered in his ear, “I know what happened in that men’s room. Look,” and she held her iPod before his eyes and played the video up to his accident. His heart rate and blood pressure rose noticeably on the monitor by his bed.

     “I think you’ll agree this should never see the light of day, for everyone’s sake. As far as anyone needs to know, you just slipped and fell in that men’s room. You’re a klutz, and nothing more. We’re still man and wife, still a family. The fertility doctors I’ve consulted say a baby’s still possible with in vitro fertilization.” She stared hard at him, with dead-serious resolve. “Blink twice if you agree.”

     After a pause, Blake blinked twice. He’d always been quick with important decisions.

     “Don’t worry, I’ll do all the talking — from now on. I’ll handle everything, in everyone’s best interest.” She kissed him on the forehead when the nurses returned, then said goodbye.

     In the corridor with Ron Lamore by her side, she told the waiting detectives what her husband had just told her with his eye blinks, namely that he had indeed been alone in that men’s room when he’d slipped and fallen. When the detectives asked what the senator had been doing at the mall that night, Ron stepped forward. He claimed the senator had told him he was going shopping that night for a birthday present for his wife, whose thirtieth birthday was in two weeks. The senator, as busy as he’d always been, had always personally picked out his gifts for his wife, according to Ron.

     A few days later, when the detectives talked to the senator in his hospital room, they asked yes-or-no questions he could respond to with simple eye blinks. But he seemed confused by the nagging questions. Ron presented the detectives with a written statement, which he said the senator had “heroically dictated” with eye blinks to a secretary with a pointer and a large alphabet chart in the presence of witnesses. The gist of the statement was that he’d slipped and fallen in the restroom as he’d exited a stall. Yes, he’d heard someone else in the restroom while he’d sat in the stall, but whoever it had been had left a minute or two before he’d fallen, and that was that.

     Afterward, Tendra shooed the detectives out, complaining that their presence had only tired and annoyed her husband. Ron got assurances from the mayor of D.C. that further police insensitivity would not be tolerated.

     According to opinion polls and surveys, even the public was ready to give the hapless senator the benefit of the doubt, or at least a pass. Ron’s story about him shopping for a birthday present for his wife played well. The only late-night TV comic who lampooned the senator’s tragic fall was roundly booed, and never went there again. How could the public not have been sympathetic considering the senator’s pathetic circumstances and his beautiful, young, teary-eyed wife begging on TV for the prayers of the nation? Senator Blake Rushmore had taken a tragic header in a public restroom. Case closed.

     The next day Tendra, along with her lawyer, a magistrate, Ron Lamore, and several witnesses, showed up in the senator’s hospital room. There he signed, via eye blinks, his durable power of attorney placing his wife in charge of all his affairs.

 

#

 

The morning after Election Day, Senator Tendra Rushmore walked into the airy new Care Wing at Hacienda Rushmore, the sprawling Spanish Colonial ranch house on the Rushmore estate outside Dallas. The fully equipped new wing was where Blake Rushmore resided with the round-the-clock aid he needed. He lay propped up now in his hospital bed before the various TV and computer screens he enjoyed watching. On one of them glowed a sonogram of his soon-to-be-born son.

     Blake smiled and winked his congratulations when Tendra approached. She’d just won her first election. She was now Senator Rushmore in her own right. She’d already served nearly two years as the junior senator from Texas, ever since the governor, at her husband’s request and by popular demand, had appointed her to serve out the remainder of his last term.

     Tendra’s walk, which even political commentators called mesmerizing, was now more like a waddle. She expected labor to start any minute. It’d been just over nine months ago that she’d collected her husband’s ejaculate for the purpose. But for all the romance the process had lacked, how satisfying the result had been — even to the voters. Tendra, the beautiful, young wife of the fallen former senator, running in his stead, carrying his baby, even about to give birth on Election Day!

     Hector Ramirez Sanchez, the hugely popular Democratic Congressman, had run against her. The race had been close too, since many of old Senator Rushmore’s ardent right-wing supporters had sat it out, complaining there hadn’t been a dime’s worth of difference between Tendra and the Democrat. But her appeal to moderates, Democratic and Republican alike, as well as to independents, had made all the difference. The real clincher had come when the pushy Democratic PAC MowDown.org had weighed in with its most controversial attack ad yet. It’d featured a full thirty-second clip from the notorious “Rushmores get a room” video, a close-up of moaning, sweating, panting Tendra, with her swaying breasts pixilated for prime-time TV. An indignant voice-over had asked, “Do you want a porn star representing you in the Senate?”

     Well, the voters of Texas had answered with a resounding yes, thanks in large part to the Latina-pride backlash. Tendra’s Hispanic sisters, who’d turned out in record numbers, regarded her video performance as a passionate celebration of Hispanic womanhood. They took great pride in the fact that “Ten” Rushmore was “the hottest senator ever,” as well as “a real compassionate conservative.”

     Tendra hadn’t wanted to run negative ads herself — so she hadn’t. And the unheard-of tactic — as well as her looks — had even got her campaign more media attention than any other Senate race in the nation. She’d put the Muffin in charge of writing her wholly issue-oriented ads. The talented, young playwright was now one of her best friends.

     Remarkably, the more MowDown’s naked-Tendra ad had run, the more saintly Tendra had seemed. As one pundit had put it, any decent human being watching Tendra sweat and pant in that video couldn’t help but feel the invisible scourge and crown of thorns.

     Tendra snugged herself against the bed to lift her husband’s heavy, limp hand now. She pressed it to her belly. She knew his hand couldn’t actually feel anything, but his eyes always seemed to light up when he saw his hand there, when he imagined his son inside her.

     The once robust and commanding Blake Rushmore paid dearly now, every long day, for the way he’d betrayed and humiliated her. Casey always told her it was best to remember him as he’d been before. After all, he’d still be that way now if he could. But how could she hold a grudge? He wasn’t even expected to live much longer. Chronic infections had ravaged his withering body: staph, pneumonia, meningitis, septicemia. His immune system had practically given up. Tendra could only feel sorry for him now. She smiled down at him as best she could. As always, his lips quivered, trying to form words, but only producing moans and drool. Neck-down paralysis was horrible enough, but for a once rousing orator like Blake, speechlessness seemed the cruelest cut of all.

     When Casey had first taken Tendra under her wing, she’d whipped Tendra’s indignation into a frenzy. All kinds of revenge scenarios had flooded her mind. She would have seen the video of her husband in that men’s room stall plastered all over the Internet. It would have wholly supplanted his propaganda video of him and her in that hotel room. She would have seen him far more humiliated than she’d ever been, and would have had her well-earned divorce and as much of his fortune as the courts would have allowed too.

     But now, after his accident, after seeing him lying there so helpless, how could she not feel for him? How could she not remain his wife and see to his comfort and care, as well as his reputation? With Casey’s varied connections, Tendra had even seen to it that all her husband’s nurses were gay men, and all suitably masculine and discreet and loyal Republicans too. They brought him gay porn to watch, DVDs they’d vetted themselves for critical merit. It was one of his few remaining pleasures. Even though his body was a senseless lump, his mind seemed to get just as aroused as it had before.

     Tendra swirled his hand absently around her belly, happy to see the thrill in his eyes as he imagined his son. Knowing it was a boy seemed to make Blake ecstatic. But the truth though, the whole truth, was too mean, and she wasn’t some heartless monster. But what Blake wanted, wanted more than anything now, was what she could never give him. Have his baby? His baby? She could never risk it. She didn’t really know why Blake was the way he was, how much of his personality, his nature, was due to his genes. The baby would bear his name, of course, but another Blake Rushmore, another person just like him? She’d never wish that on anyone. As careful as she’d be with her child’s upbringing, she could never trust her husband’s genetic legacy. Like father, like son? Never.

 

#

 

“Anybody home?”

     Blake squinted. His jaw clenched at the sound of Casey’s voice. That bitch! he thought.

     Casey, smiling and waving, strolled into the Care Wing looking as fit and energetic as ever. She’d just flown down from Washington to be with Tendra for the birth. The doctor and nurses were already on standby at Hacienda Rushmore.

     When Casey reached Blake’s bedside, she slid an arm around Tendra’s waist, then leaned in to kiss her on the cheek — or was it the lips?! Blake’s eyes strained sideways, but he couldn’t tell for sure. The glorious image of his unborn son in Tendra’s belly evaporated as brash Casey grabbed his hand and shook it theatrically.

     “Howya doin’ thar, Blake?” she squawked in her ludicrous parody of a Southern drawl, then plopped his dead hand on his chest. “Ah’s a-readin’ sumpin’ on duh plane ‘bout some pro-gress in spinal chord regrowin’ with dat thar godless-clonin’ re-search. Too bad you Grand Ol’ Buggers de-laid dat stuff so long by,” she drawled.

     Blake’s jaw tightened.

     “Good ta git da ol’ blood flowin’, huh, senatah?” When she mussed his hair, his teeth ground even harder.

     “Casey, please,” Tendra said, reaching to pat down his hair. “This is a big day for Blake. He’ll see his son before it’s over, I’m sure of it.”

     Tendra was a magnetic politician, all right, and quite a uniter. She’d already been more effective in the Senate than he’d ever been, Blake realized. Remarkably, her name was already on landmark, bipartisan childcare legislation, and she had innovative health and education bills planned for the next session. There was already talk of her being on the national ticket someday. All the members of the Senate’s old-boys’ club, whatever their persuasion, delighted in being in her presence, especially before the cameras. But of all the disconcerting friends she’d collected along the way, of all the pseudo-sophisticated, cheek-kissing liberals, Blake figured Casey Lansing was by far the worst.

 

#

 

Tendra turned her full attention to Casey now, oblivious to Blake.

     “Looking good,” Casey cooed. She hugged Tendra, then fondled her ample belly as Tendra glowed like a sated Buddha — and Blake’s eyes narrowed. “A muffin in the oven. Yums, can’t wait,” Casey said and winked.

     Tendra pursed her lips and frowned, but only faintly. “You’re incorrigible!” she whispered to Casey, then smiled. She’d sworn Casey to secrecy, and Casey never would tell, of course. But she did seem unable to resist dancing around the edge. After all, Tendra was still Mrs. Blake Rushmore, even after the sordid way Blake had used her. Like everything else about Casey, Tendra found her touch of little-girl jealousy endearing — and not just a little exciting.

     Tendra smiled at Casey. She owed Casey so much. Now, with the pregnancy coming to a head, their thoughts — and feelings — seemed more in sync than ever.

     She remembered the day Casey had secretly peeked through the partition surrounding Blake’s bed, directing everything like a deft choreographer. Tendra’s hands had been full, literally, with clueless Blake, who’d stared at the ceiling the whole time. He hadn’t had the heart to watch the humiliating procedure — “milking” was what the clinic people had called it. After that horrible video from that New York hotel room, Tendra had insisted on doing it herself, on applying that rude device in as caring a way as possible, on protecting her husband’s remaining dignity at all cost.

     The Muffin had done his indispensable part too — in a nearby bathroom. Then it had been just a matter of making the sly switch before Tendra had carried “the harvest” to the waiting fertility-clinic technician in the foyer. Casey had already posed as one of the old senator’s doctors when she’d substituted a sample of the Muffin’s blood for Blake’s for the preliminary testing. Blake had been so pleased too when later he'd learned how viable and motile "his" sperm still were.

     The Muffin, with his looks and creativity and compassion, had made quite an impression on Tendra. She figured his child could never turn out as reprehensible as the senator. Casey too had considered the Muffin the perfect choice. As she’d said when they — she and Tendra — had decided to become parents, “If he’s good enough for your husband, why not? And who knows? The baby could still become president — maybe even the first gay president.”

 

Copyright 2009 Ray Gregory

 

www.RayGregory.com