THE PRESIDENT'S GIRLFRIEND (8 page)

     “Why?” she asked, still smiling.  “Because I told you the truth about those budget cuts?”

     “You were brutal,” he said.  “But that’s not the only reason.”

     Gina could see the lust in his eyes.  She could feel her own lust rising.  “Why else would you want to spank me?” she asked with laughter in her eyes.

     He stared at those eyes, and then down at her lips.  He began moving toward her lips.  “So I can see that tight ass of yours wiggling beneath me,” he said, his heat penetrating every inch of her, “ when I fuck you again.” 

     As soon as he said those words he put his mouth on hers and kissed her with a jarring kiss.  So passionately he kissed her that she clutched onto him in a death grip of an embrace.  It had been so long ago, so long forgotten, that now it felt as if they had first made love only yesterday.

     He reached inside her pants and her panties and began massaging her mound and then her clit, rubbing softly and then harder and harder, her body jerking with the sensations, her growing wetness thrilling Dutch.

     “Oh,
sir
,” she said as he massaged her, as those sensations began to pulsate with higher and higher intensity.

     But he didn’t stop there.  With his free hand he reached inside her suit coat and lifted her purple blouse and matching bra.  And he began kissing and sucking her breasts, the heat becoming almost unbearable with every lick, every massage, every kiss he seared onto her.

     And just as that unbearable heat had him so caught up that he actually considered taking her right on that yellow couch they sat upon, knocks were heard on the door. 

     Dutch stopped all movement.  He had to take a moment first and regain control his erratic breathing.  Only then was he able to help Gina reconfigure her clothing and get off of his lap.  Her breasts were still so wet that she feared the saliva would seep through her blouse. 

     “Yes?” Dutch yelled, able to appear surprisingly calm, it seemed to Gina, considering the tornado they had just been whirled into.

     Max Brennan, the man she recognized from TV as the president’s best friend and chief of staff, walked into the room.    

     “Mr. President,” he said, his small, tired gray eyes glancing at Dutch, but staring at Gina.  “Sorry to disturb you, sir, but we need to get started.”           

     Dutch stood up, wiping his hands with his handkerchief, and in standing, caused Gina to stand, too.  But unlike Dutch, she felt flustered and knew she looked it. 

     “Is everybody assembled?” Dutch asked him.

     “They’re assembled in the Situation Room now, sir, yes, sir.”

     Dutch exhaled, opened his suit coat, and placed his hands inside his pant pockets.  He had another long day ahead of him.  But when he turned to tell Gina that he had to go, and saw that bewildered look in her eyes, he turned back to his chief of staff.  “Give me a moment, Max,” he said. 

     It was obvious to Gina that Max really didn’t want to give him another second with her, but he didn’t exactly have a choice.  He eyed her suspiciously again, as if it was all her fault, and then left back out of the room. 

     Dutch looked at her.  “I have a meeting.”

     “I understand.”

     “You understand, don’t you?”

     “Yes, sir, of course.”  What Gina didn’t understand was why he was wasting time still talking to her.  She didn’t know a lot about the White House, but she knew enough to know that when they were assembling in the Situation Room, it was serious.

     “I want you to have dinner with me tonight,” he said to her.  It was a spur of the moment thing, something he hadn’t even expected to say just a moment ago, but wasn’t about to take it back.

     Gina was hesitant and it showed.

     “You can lobby me some more,” Dutch said encouragingly.  “I make no promises, however, on what I’ll do when that bill hits my desk.  But I’ll listen to your concerns.”    

     That was at least something, Gina thought, although she also knew that having dinner with him could be bad for her emotional health.  Especially the way they were just going at it already.  She could only imagine what it would be like tonight.  But she couldn’t turn down this chance to air her very serious grievances about that budget bill.  “What time?” she asked.

     Dutch looked upward.  “It’s probably going to be one of my long days.  Christian will come for you, say, around ten? ”

     Ten at night?  That seemed a little late to her.  But she wasn’t exactly talking about a typical date.  “Okay,” she said with a nod of assent. 

     “You wait here.  Chris will be in to take you where you need to go.”  He kept his hand on her arm, however, and began caressing it.  “What do you have on your agenda today?” he asked her.

     “Lobbying Congress about that dangerous budget bill, what else?”

     “Alone?”

     “With a friend. I came to DC with a friend.”

     Dutch studied her.  “Your boyfriend?”

     Boyfriend?  How could he think she’d have a boyfriend the way she was allowing him to kiss on her, to fondle her?  “No,” she said.

     “Husband?”

     “No, of course not,” she said.  “She’s female.  Her name is LaLa.”

     “What-what?”

     Gina smiled.  “Loretta King.  She works with me.”

     “You take care of yourself around this busy town, you hear me?”

     “Oh, don’t worry about me.  I know my way around.”

    
Yes, you do
, he wanted to say.  But he leaned against her and kissed her on the lips, instead.  When he stopped and looked into her eyes, he smiled that smile she was becoming reacquainted with.  “I’ll see you tonight,” he said with a squeeze of her arm, attempting to make clear to her that she won’t be sorry, and then headed in that calm, but hurried gait of his, for the Situation Room.

     Only Gina felt as if she was the one in a situation.

FIVE

LaLa was right.  Nobody in DC wants to be around a loudmouth.  That was why, in every congressional office they ventured into, no congressman or woman would see them.  They were continually relegated to aides and back-benchers with no pull, who met with them to avoid any backlash for not meeting with them, but with no intention of providing any help or reassurances.  The Block by Block Raiders could go to the devil, as far as those congressional staffers were concerned.  One, an aide in the office of their very own Congressman Cannon of Newark, said it best: “You insulted the President of the United States, Gina.  What did you expect?”

     That was the refrain.  All day long.  What did she expect?  Even LaLa got in on the chorus.  “It’s true, you know,” she said as they sat in a café on Capitol Hill to re-think their strategy.  They had set aside two days, today and tomorrow, to remain in DC and lobby Congress hard.  Now it looked as if they were wasting their time. 

     “What’s true,” Gina said, drinking her cappuccino and putting a bright red X next to the name of yet another congressman who wasn’t interested in their plight, “is that our doors will have to close sooner rather than later if we can’t get some reassurances of no more budget cuts.  We could operate, however thinly, on the appropriations from their last round of cuts, and from the donations from the few private sponsors we still have left, but we can’t take another hit.  For real.”

     “I know all that,” LaLa said.  “I’m not talking about that.  I’m talking about what happened this morning at the White House, at the awards ceremony.”

     Gina knew what she meant.  She just didn’t want to deal with that, especially with what happened afterwards.  “What I said was the truth,” she said.  “I’m not backing down from that.  BBR is in trouble because of all of their cuts, and his lack of leadership.”

     “I know what you’re saying, Gina, you know I do.  But Fox News ain’t looking at it that way.  They’re playing that tape over and over again as a way to hurt the president.  ‘Even members of his base hates him now,’ is what those reporters at Fox keep saying, playing it up like it’s all about how ineffective he’s been since he took office.”

     “And your point is?”

     “Your criticism of President Harber has played right into the conservatives’ hands.”

     “Okay, okay.  I get it.  But I still stand by every word I said.” 

     LaLa looked at her.  “And what about tonight?”

     Gina hesitated, then looked at her friend.  “What about it?”

     “You sure that budget bill is all he has in mind?”

     Gina declare if LaLa wasn’t psychic.  Did she see him kissing her today, sucking her breasts, massaging her?  Was LaLa hiding in the room?  “What in the world else would he have in mind, La?” Gina asked, determined to keep her cool.  “He’ll meet with me, and then tell the press he gave my grievances a full airing, that’s all this invitation is about.”

     “Nope,” LaLa said, shaking her head.  “Ain’t buying it.  No ma’am.  If all he wanted to do was to listen to you gab about some budget bill so he can say he met with you, then he would have let that meeting after the awards ceremony do.  But no, he meets with you after the ceremony and also invites you to dinner?  Nall, girl, LaLa smells a rat in that stew.  That man wants to talk to you all right.  Pillow talk to you.”

     “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

     “He’s single and you’re single,” LaLa continued, “so ain’t nothing wrong with it.  I’m not saying that.  But girl, you messing with the
sho’nuff
big times now if you gonna be messing around with that dude.”