The sun sets on a new day (Paul & Donna)
She continued to write and he continued to respond. She would tell him about the latest happenings in the political world, the must have drink DuJour, hot fashions and the good beltway political gossip. Her writing and her topics would be as sporadic and diverse as the life she lived, one minutes hopelessly obsessed with work, the next wasting time waiting to go to some party or event, rubbing elbows with people in power by day and under the cover of night spending time fulfilling some basal needs and occupying her time with a series of friends and lovers. Paul would write back sharing ambiguous details of his very average existence, things in his day were far more routine, predictable to a mind numbing fault. For a brief time he was jealous of her life. She clubbed and partied like time had never passed. Neither of them smoked any longer, but both still drank. He drank to remember, remember the possibility of what he could have been, of expectations and of a seemingly limitless future and she drank to forget. She drank to forget who she was, not who she had become but who she was before. She drank to forget that she was a poor girl in a Midwestern town, that she was (despite her beauty which is a quality that she had always possessed) was not considered to be the pretty daughter. She drank because that was the only thing that she ever loved that hadn’t used her and then left. Her mother asks for money and her father’s drinking is worse, there are nights when the boys drop him off outside and he passes out before getting into the house. Just last winter she got a call from her sister Shelly. Shelly was part of her past that she would rather forget, a link to what and who she was. To times that were not memorable in any uplifting way. Donna always was in competition with Shelly. Shelly had kids what else had she ever done that made a difference other than increase the world’s population.
“How pretty is the bitch now?” She thought to herself. “Five kids and 150 extra pounds later. How can he still love her?” she wondered.
Shelly was married to a kind and gentle man named Aaron who loved his wife deeply. In truth Shelly and Aaron and their brood of children knew joys that Donna couldn’t ever imagine. They were simple people with a modest life but their house was filled with love and their lives were filled with the simple joys that a close family can bring. Perhaps Shelly had the body of a woman who lived to raise her five kids with little regard to herself. A few extra pounds and sagging breasts, but she was not nearly the goliath that Donna imagined. She tried to forget the bitch and her happy unimportant life as her chocolate martini arrives. Nadrea is babbling on incessantly, self obsessed about the penis size of her last lover, seemingly not stopping to breathe. Sitting among the other beautifully people in high gloss vinyl chairs and booths surrounded the gloss cushions with dark wood. Shapes of people carrying large glasses in intoxicating liquid drifted through the dimly lit bar back to their tables where wealthy and powerful men cavorted with their mistresses. Nadrea paused only to drink and order another apple-tini, complain briefly about how long it would take to arrive and then back to the inadequacy of her latest love interest. Donna and Nadrea’s usual haunt is Ozio Martini and Cigar Lounge on M Street NW, it use to be on K and it was far better on K but the new location was fine…and the crowd was as pretentious as always. It was out of the way of the work crowd that would hang a lounge 201 on Capital Hill. Too many people knew Donna there and she was about to indulge her dark side, the side that had always been there but had never been spoken. She was a party girl with cash that was soon to be past her prime chronologically but not physically as a party girl, old habits die hard.
“Besides,” she thought to herself “everyone has dirty little secrets and bad habits mine just combine rough sex and married men.”
Not just any married men but high profile, public figures who at least to some degree have influence and power. A laundry list of businessmen and lobbyist but in the last few months a particular elected official has been a regular companion. She broke her pattern with this one Robert was actually a decent guy and not involved with anyone else, this would be almost a first for her. She liked men who had to keep their distance and needed to be discreet. Men who wanted an interlude for a period, but not a wife and mother. She never had any delusions of them leaving their spouses or other lovers for her. She would tell herself that it was simpler that way. That fewer commitments of time made life easier, but in truth it also made certain holidays quiet and lonely rather than hectic and stress filled. One supposes that it is a matter of preference as to whether that is a good thing or not.
It is not uncommon for such a thing such as affairs and trysts to happen in a town built on greed and deceit with a hint of the public good thrown in just for good measure. Most men in this city or for that matter most men of power have liaisons from time to time at the very least. In just a few hours she would introduce her lover into a world that he may have never even imagined, a world so deeply hidden from most who knew her that she gave him acceptable wardrobe recommendations and told him where to meet her and her companion.
A few more drinks then Donna and Nadrea found themselves outside on to the street to catch a cab. As they wondered toward the car, Donna stopped to pause and think about Paul. The two slid into the cab and headed for Nation where the latest fetish party was being held, loud music and other guilty pleasures.
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Copyright 2008 Michael Malflic
