Bipartisanship and Romance Pt. 03

I was standing there horrified that Raj was calling a 67-year-old grandmother sexy when I heard Eddie whisper, "Son of a bitch."

"Right?" Raj cackled again.

"She creates a bag that they have to walk into. We don't allow them to slam us. They have to talk about the issue because we aren't talking..." Eddie trailed off.

"And after they have to say that they, of course, want to protect preexisting conditions, she brings it all down on them," I said with dawning realization.

"Exactly!" Raj said, pumping his fist. "Now I'm going to head to the store and grab something huge and delicious for dinner. I may call my lobbying friend from last week and ask if she wants to join us. Eddie, you tell Mike to come over and celebrate. Ted, you get scotch, no fuck it, champagne. It's a party."

"Oh, and I'm not allowed to bring a guest?" I said, trying to fake annoyance.

Raj gave me a look that landed so high on the sarcasm meter that I think he broke it and said, "I was assuming you were still capable of walking down the hall and knocking on Maddie's door."

*************

Mike was my chief of staff, so when he got Eddie's call, he asked if he could go with me. We stopped by a liquor store and got champagne and an assortment of other things. Offices were wrapping up their business quickly in Washington with a holiday coming; half Congress had gone home. I had one meeting on my calendar, and it was two days from now. I felt like I could tie one on.

When we got home, Eddie was already in his standard uniform, shorts, and a t-shirt. The guy had been a marine and was now a congressman. He was not going to wear a uniform, either military or civilian, any longer than he had to. I was also pleasantly surprised to see Maddie. As always, she looked great. Tonight she looked even better in a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and bare feet. She had a martini glass with pink liquid in it in one hand.

"Raj texted that we were celebrating. Since that was my plan anyway, I got started early." She walked over to me and leaned over the box of alcohol to kiss me. "Hey, Mike! Welcome." She said over my shoulder.

"And what are we celebrating?" I asked.

"For one thing, you three got hauled into the principles office. Maybe every reporter in town will stop shoving a mic in my face and asking me about healthcare. And we got the transportation bill out of committee." With this news, she swayed her hips and made a little dancing move with her hands.

Mike whistled, "Man, I thought that thing was DOA. Who the hell budged? Plant? Wilson? Markus?"

"Hankins." She said with a look of undeniable triumph.

"Bullshit," Eddie chirped. Gus Hankins was an actual socialist, not just a liberal Democrat, from Vermont. He never met a deal that had the potential to make someone a dime that he didn't hate. Democrats often had a hard time working with him, and he was on our side. He was also pushing 80 and was mean as a goat.

"Yes, sir," Maddie cooed, "I just gave him my sweetest little accent and said, 'Oh, Gus, don't you think this deal will be just swell' and then batted my baby blue eyes at him."

"Ha, I'm not sure he remembers how to smile, much less how to flirt," I chimed in. "You are pulling us on."

"Nope, I'm surprised you haven't heard already. He demanded that union firms be allowed into all bidding. Fine, but states now have to ensure that they will go with the lowest bid for federal contracts. He then tried to pull the green card and claim that green companies had to have a fair shot. Fine, but no regulations that green companies got pride of place. If they had the low bid, they got the deal. Momma done closed the pork barely until someone opens another one, obviously." She again did her little jig.

"Gus Hankins," I sighed. "Well, shit, this is a celebration. I'm gonna change. I'll be right back."

My room was the first at the top of the stairs. I quickly started to change out of my suit. Being a teacher, I had always been a blazer and slacks guy, but the House's Speaker seemed like a formal occasion. I could still feel the sweat on the back of my shirt from our meeting when I took it off. I heard my door crack open.

"Oh, perfect timing," I heard Maddie say. As I turned around, she had taken her shirt off.

"Jesus, Maddie, there are people downstairs. There is gonna be a fricking party. What if they hear?" I asked.

"Be quiet and be fast. I'm one cocktail in. I'm triumphant. I'm horny. You all also seem to be in a good mood. Easy solution. Let's fuck." She said while taking her pants down.

Maddison Crawford, in just her bra and thong, could make the pope forget his vows. I didn't stand a chance. She grabbed the hem of my boxers and pulled me towards her. We kissed. I wrapped my arms around her.

"Now," she hissed, "I really need you to put your cock in me." She then pulled away and slid her thong down her legs. As always, I had to add some awkwardness by not getting my boxers off properly. I then turned toward the bed and was greeted with the sight of Maddie on her hands and knees. Her perfect ass up in the air.

I moved between her legs and rubbed the tip of my cock against her slit. God, she was wet. I was going to ease myself in slowly, but she had other plans. As soon as the tip of my cock was inside of her, she slammed herself back onto my groin.

"Fuck," she said. "God, I like fucking you."

I half-laughed, half groaned, and began to thrust into her. She put her head down on the bed, pushing her ass even higher. I had both of my hands on her hips. It was clear that she wanted to fuck, not make love. I obliged. I picked up my pace.

"That ass isn't going to spank itself," she moaned out, "take it, Ted."

Each cheek got a few good swats. She was still wearing her bra, and I reached down and grabbed the strap for leverage. I felt some sweat start to go down my back. I felt Maddie's hand begin to rub her clit and her pussy tightened around my cock.

"Oh, God, fuck," I moaned. "Shit, you're going to make me cum."

"Yes, cum baby. Cum in me. Fuck." She moaned into the bed.

I gave her everything I had. The slapping sound our bodies made filled the room. I began to feel my balls tighten. Maddie's fingers went into overdrive. I felt her pussy tighten and begin to quiver. I looked down and could see that she had bitten down on the sheets to stop screaming. The vision was enough to send me over the edge, and I began to empty myself into her. I eased myself on top of her. I could feel the sweat on her back against my chest. We lay there panting. She turned her head and gave me a sideways kiss.

"Ahhhh," she sighed, "I needed that." She gave me another peck.

"Anytime," I said. Just then, we heard the front door open.

"IT'S A CELEBRATION, BITCHES!" Raj shouted out. It sounded like a hundred people came in behind him. Maddie elbowed me off of her.

"We better get dressed." She said. She finished off whatever pink concoction she was drinking. "Besides, I need another cocktail."

She popped out of bed and found her thong. She wiggled into her jeans and had her shirt on before I had even stood up. She was tussling her hair in the mirror on the back of my door when she caught me staring at her. She winked.

"Hey, and if this party is any good, you might get lucky later." She turned and kissed me. I was starting to get hard again. She noticed and squeezed me, but before I could grab her, she popped out the door. I stood there, just shaking my head and wondering what I had done to deserve such luck.

I got downstairs and discovered an apartment full of people. Several of our colleagues from Congress and staff members were there and Raj's lobbyist friend Christa. When Raj saw me, he shook his head.

"I swear, one day, I am going to put rabbits on the menu. I won't even have to go to the store. I'll just cook you two." He said, rolling his eyes. He was standing over the largest beef loin I had ever seen.

"Jesus, Raj. There must be twenty people here. You didn't tell them all what happened, did you? Gower will kill us." I half-whispered to him

"Of course not. I just said we were having a Thanksgiving send-off. It helps that Maddie scored the way she did today. It gives us cover. Can you believe she got Hankin?" he said while covering the loin with a mix of spices. "That's the only reason Parker and Sanchez-Cruz came. They wanted to grill her on how to get the old man to say anything but no." Dale Parker was a Democrat from Dallas, a nice guy, but more of a let's get along to get reelected kind of guy. Alexa Sanchez-Cruz was famous for being the youngest member of Congress, having scored an upset over a longtime Brooklyn Democrat in the primary. She was a far-left progressive like Hankin, but even she had a hard time working with him. I could see Dale was already talking with Maddie, and the two were laughing. I got mad at myself for being jealous.

"Ok, I just don't want to screw this up," I said.

"Relax. Get some champagne in you. Tell Christa she is wearing nice shoes and that you are going to legalize weed in Ohio when you get the chance. Raj is going to fill you with food and drink. Now go party." He said, waving me away.

The party was nice. Everybody was just blowing off steam. Most seemed to know that we had met Gower, but none seemed to know the reason. Raj was in his element. When he wasn't putting on a cooking demonstration, he was making someone laugh. He never had fewer than three beautiful women around him, all looking at him longingly. Maddie and I were pretty open about the fact that we were together. At one point, I talked to Barry Mac, one of the other Democrats from Ohio, when Maddie slid up next to me and slipped my arm around her. Mac barely noticed or cared and continued chatting with me about a new union law proposed in Ohio. Several people comment on what a cute couple we were. It was nice not to feel like we were slinking around. Later that night, after a nice round of drunk sex, Maddie brought it up.

"Thank you for being a good boyfriend tonight."

"Thank you for just being my girlfriend, much less a good one," I replied.

"Seriously, though. I was nervous. I wanted to be normal and have fun, and you didn't hide from me or make us pretend nothing was happening. You also didn't go over the top and gush about me. It was a nice night." She kissed me and then started to trace my tattoo with her finger.

"Well, it was hard to gush about you when everyone there was ready to give you a trophy. I mean, damn. Gus Hankins. I knew he was tough before I ever got here. But, you are right. It was a very nice night." I said, leaning down and kissing her forehead.

"That reminds me, why did you three get hauled into Gower's office? None of you talked about it." She leaned up on her elbow.

I hesitated, and she saw it immediately.

"Or is this a no business in the house rule?" she asked.

"Look, I want to talk with you about things. Can I talk to Maddie and not talk to Congresswoman Crawford?" I turned slightly towards her.

She thought for a moment and then held up her pinky finger and said, "When we are naked in bed, we are Maddie and Ted. It's a cone of silence; if either one of us breaks it, the relationship is over. Deal?"

I put out my pinky and curled it around hers.

"Deal," I replied. "It's healthcare. She doesn't want our people dealing with it before an election year. She read us the riot act for making it the topic on TV before she was ready."

"Yeah, fuck you guys, by the way. You make Republicans sound like we want to kill cancer patients. Man!" she put her head back down on my shoulder.

"Well, it turns out she would rather not talk about it either right now." I felt terrible because it was sort of a lie, but not really.

"Can I ask you something? It is ok to say no to this. My parents have a timeshare in St. Thomas. They have availability for the week after Christmas, but they can't go. Do you want to go with me?" She asked, almost shyly. "Maybe, you could come down the day before we go, and you could meet my family?"

"Yeah," I sounded short of shocked, so I said again, "Yes. Absolutely. I would love to. Why can't your parents go? Is everything ok? Would they be ok with me going?"

"Oh yay! No, no, nothing is wrong. My niece has a big pageant or something, and my brother and his wife are guilt-tripping them about being bad grandparents. My mom fell for it. They offered it and said I should bring some friends. I thought I would take you." She seemed almost relieved.

"Well, it sounds great. After this, god knows I could use a break." I said.

"And you are ok with coming down to meet my parents?" Again, the shyness was back in her voice.

"Maddie, I'd love to meet your parents. Just so long as they know, I'm a wicked, liberal socialist. I don't want to have to pretend to be a Republican." I said.

"Yay!" she straddled me and leaned down and kiss me. "Sorry, I just only have brought one guy home, and it didn't go well. I know it silly, but I guess I still think of meeting the parents as a big scary moment."

"I know. It is big. But I think we are at a point where we can handle big things. And I want you to meet my mom. Cincinnati isn't exactly a go-to destination, but we will go out to dinner the next time she is in town. Sound good?" I asked.

"Sounds great!" she said. "Speaking of handling big things..."

***********************

It felt good to be back home. Life moved a little bit slower. I went to the Democratic headquarters, where I had a small office the first two days. I answered some constituent calls. On Tuesday night, I held a town hall. Barry Mac and I had a call with Teresa Brown, the Junior Senator and fellow Democrat from Ohio. She was going to run the point on attacking the anti-union law that the governor was thinking about enacting. We marveled that he could be so rash. Teachers' unions weren't always the most popular, but going after them AND firefighter and police unions seemed like political suicide. They had banded together to form a three-headed monster to fight the bill. Barry helped make sure that the three coordinated their messaging and that they didn't break ranks. As a former teacher, I was the liaison to their union. We were reasonably confident that he wouldn't sign it.

The only other news that I paid attention to seemed to be proving Speaker Gower correct. Every talking head had on at least one Republican a night, and they all got the healthcare question. My inbox was filling up with requests to go on, but I politely declined them all. By Thursday morning, the meeting was scheduled to meet with the leading Republicans.

Thanksgiving is always a fun holiday. My family is a huge Irish/Italian gang, so most dinners together turn into parties, and parties became all-day crazy affairs. The food, as always, was terrific. My mom made her famous chocolate chip pecan pie. It was dad's favorite and probably the last thing he got down before losing him to throat cancer three years ago. As the food was getting cleared, the cousins settled into what we called the "Kids' Table" with some bottles of wine.

"Nick, where is the beautiful bride to be?" my cousin Phil asked. Nick was the oldest cousin and was finally getting married in the spring.

"She won't let them clean up without help. They keep trying to shoo her out of the kitchen." He replied.

"We at least we know that you won't be such a dirty ass." I chimed in.

"Get bent." He replied.

Phil's brother Peter looked over at me and said, "Speaking of lovely ladies, how's your love life going? Are you up to your elbows in hot lobbyist?"

"I have actually started seeing someone. It's kind of in the early stages, but it's good." I responded.

My cousin Katie chimed in with, "I was watching the news the other day, and there was the cutest congresswoman on TV. Maddison something, I think, from South Carolina. Republican, but smoking hot."

I choked on some red wine and, through a cough, croaked out, "Crawford, Maddison Crawford."

"Yeah, that was it. Do you know her?" Katie asked.

"Yeah. Um, yes, I know her. That's actually who I am seeing." I responded.

"No shit. Like is it ok that she's a Republican? I mean, do you fight a lot?" My cousin Dan asked.

"No, actually, we keep things in the office at the office. When we're out, it's mostly sports and generics about how our days went. She's a Braves fan, so we talk about baseball a lot." I said.

"Fuck," Phil cried out. "Dump her now. It's doomed, I tell ya. DOOOOOOMMMMED."

"What can I say? I'm a glutton for punishment." I said with a shrug.

The conversation moved on to other cousins. It was good to tell my family and not have it be a big deal. We had all been raised by Democrats, but we would welcome anybody who laughs and gets razzed. My mom barely batted an eye when I had told her earlier in the week. She just said that she wanted to make sure that I was happy. Now that the wider family knew and didn't seem to care, I knew I was in the clear.

Maddie called on Friday evening. She had been out shopping with her mom and sister-in-law. It was good to hear her voice.

"So I told my mom and dad that you were coming in on the 26^th." She still sounded tentative when she talked about it.

"Sounds good. Before I left, I had my secretary book my flight. I'm looking forward to it." I tried to sound reassuring even though I wasn't sure why I had to be.

"Cool. I've got our travel plans to St. Thomas all set. Mom was excited to hear that you were coming. Daddy seemed happy enough. Although he said that he hoped we would use appropriate sleeping arrangements. Mom just winked at me when he said it, though, so it's fine."

"Glad he's happy enough. Also, what do I owe you for tickets? I don't want to be a freeloader." I said.

"Nothing. You'll see when you get here." She said conspiratorially.

"Ok, I just don't want your parents to think I'm a jerk or something," I told her.

"No, no, not at all. It's just.... What do you know about daddy's business?" she asked.

Gerald Crawford Jr. was one of the richest men in America. A basic Google search usually puts him in the top 20 to 25. His father had owned quite a bit of farmland and, more importantly, beachfront land in Northern South Carolina. The farms were profitable enough for Gerald Sr. to send his kids to college, where Gerald Jr. fell in love with economics and his wife, Annie. In the mid-70s, the beachfront property that had been an afterthought for the Crawfords exploded in value. Gerald Jr. helped his father invest the money and turned millions into tens of millions of dollars. He then used that to become a force on Wall Street, although the exact manner he did it was way above my paygrade to explain.

"I know that you all are well off. I know that your dad is a huge power in investing. I also know that he avoided taking a big hit ten years ago when the economy was shaking. How exactly he does it, though, I might be able to understand in 10 to 15 years of careful study. Maddie, does this have something to do with why you sound nervous when you talk about this? Did something happen?" I asked.

"Well, yes and no. I just know that daddy can be intimidating. He is such a name, and the money he often deals with is so astronomical. I know that you didn't grow up poor, but people sometimes look at the way that we live, and they clam up like we aren't real or something." I felt awful for her. I knew how hard she had worked both as an undergrad and in law school. I knew nothing had been given to her that wasn't earned.

"Is that what happened with the other guy? You said you only ever brought home one guy and that it hadn't worked well. Did he get freaked out?" I asked.

"No, worse. That is why I said yes and no. We had seen each other for a while. I was a newly minted attorney, and he was an analyst for a marketing firm. A mutual friend had set us up. Everything was going great. He seemed nice. He could talk to anybody. Heck, he was a Republican. So I brought him home on the Fourth of July. From the moment he got there, he was all over daddy about getting him to invest in some sort of scheme he had been planning. Daddy was nice enough at first until after two days, and he had had enough. It was on the Fourth itself, and there were dozens of people at the house. Michael said to dad that he needed an answer for his investors. AT THE DINNER TABLE. Daddy slammed his hand down and said that was enough. Either he was going to drop it, or he could leave. Michael got up and looked at me and said that he guessed we were going." She trailed off into a sniffle.