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<td align="LEFT"><b>Becky and the Candidate</b></td>
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<td align="RIGHT"><b><font face="Georgia"><a href="bios_m2z.shtml#Noel">Jane Noel </a></font></b></td>
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<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Our candidate lost. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">We drove home, quiet. Deflated, despite the smiles and brave faces
we’d put on for the cameras, mindful of the power of sound bites
and television. I was tired of shoring up belief, whipping up
spent enthusiasm like so much cheap batter. Being a cheerleader
for the losing team is never much fun nor is believing both that
what we did mattered, yet it didn’t matter so much that we’d lost
this round. But it did. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">The party at the losing campaign’s headquarters isn’t as much
fun as the party at the winner’s, but it’s just as loud. And the
losers drink as much as the winners, probably more. I’d had my
share of warm Chardonnay in plastic cups, and I’d gone out for
a cigarette once or twice. I was glad to be out of loud rooms
with the stink of loss in the air, my voice raspy from shouting
over the noise. I was tired, and was glad to let Rob, my husband,
drive. It seemed harder and harder to find the good guys, even
harder to get them elected. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Politics is an addictive pastime, even on the local level. Each
campaign has its own story, becomes <i>the year that</i>... One never knows what the outcome will be, and soon after it
starts, there’s drama. Tempers flare, passions run high, and things
go from crisis to crisis. All working toward the outcome that
decides conclusively <i>winner or loser</i>. Who doesn’t want to know that? Contests are ancient. And leading
up to the counting, there’s more drama than a first year lit course.
Ambition, promises made and broken, betrayal, untimely revelations,
greed, deceit –</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">And sex. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Oh, yes, there’s so often sex. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">This year’s candidate (dull, and cursed with an unfortunately
high, squeaky voice) didn’t remind me of another candidate, my
‘first’ so long ago, but over the years a lot had. There’d be
something similar in the mix of looks, ambition and charm. Add
brains and bravery, even recklessness, and it’s often an irresistible
combination, especially when the candidate speaks your beliefs.
I don’t know if politics attracts a certain kind of men, or whether
it’s the office that makes them attractive. The lure of power,
no matter how transitory. It’s not always looks, or even character
or brains. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Maybe it was the end of another race, leaving that curious flatness,
the letdown of losing, that made me feel nostalgic. The emptiness
of <i>over</i>, at least for now. All campaigns coming to an end reminded me
of my first. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">I’d persuaded my best friend Becky to join me in volunteering.
It wasn’t her interest, but it would look good on our resumes
and for our scholastic careers. I didn’t need the bonus points,
but Becky did. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">We were best friends, had been for years, and now we were roommates
at school. Opposites, we fit together well: my dark hair complemented
her fair, and she stepped forward when I hung back. I was going
to teach, and Becky told everyone she was only there for her Mrs.
degree. Maybe that was even true. If her sweaters were a little
too tight and her heels a little too high, well, she was young
and exuberant, and there was plenty of time in the future to settle
down. I believed in her. When I broached the topic of volunteering,
she’d looked at me through the blue haze of an illicit cigarette,
shrugged – and agreed. Even I was surprised. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">That was a time long gone. Change was coming fast to the wider
world, in black and white in the newspapers and on the television
set down in the student’s lounge. In the south, things that had
lain dormant for ages were stirring up a potent mix of passion
and courage – and hatred. John Glenn flew around the world three
times. Though daily life was full of distractions, some frivolous,
we held our breath over a little island called Cuba. At home,
the Trans-Canada Highway officially opened. The doctors went on
strike in Saskatchewan. We became the third country in space,
launching a satellite, Alouette I. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">But change came much more slowly to the pretty university town
where we dreamed and studied, and nothing seemed to change in
the small hometown we returned to each summer. I worked in my
father’s office, and Becky in the department store downtown, selling
more socks and ties to men than they thought they needed when
they first walked in. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">For all my worries about some of Becky’s activities after work,
those were innocent days, before assassinations and assignations
ruined public lives and careers. The press was more discreet,
the public more trusting. Or perhaps just more willing to let
public figures have private lives. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">The night I finally grew up involved that first political campaign.
I came back to the headquarters after running some errands that
night, puzzled to discover the door locked and the lights off.
I was sure I’d arranged to meet Becky there, but found no sign
of her. It was quiet, and I already felt like a grown-up that
night, a little smug as I fit my key in the office door. I was
trusted with a key – I had importance. The candidate counted on
me, and I was part of things, not just a student from a small
town. I was one of the office coordinators?in reality, an unpaid
secretary. I wasn’t immune to charisma: I had a bit of a crush
on the candidate. I admired him from afar, blushed if he smiled
at me, and worked after class for his campaign, going downtown
on the bus. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">The offices were quiet, with that after hours stillness that makes
the ordinary seem laden with intrigue, every motion furtive. The
typewriters were neatly covered, but mismatched chairs were left
as they’d been clustered like an interrupted conversation. Boxes
of pins and banners were stowed anywhere they’d fit. Empty coffee
cups and full ashtrays anchored down paper: lists, pamphlets and
endless stacks of envelopes to stuff and stamp. But Becky wasn’t
around. Maybe she was in the ladies’ room, combing her hair or
applying the frosty pink lipstick she favoured. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Then I heard a noise, a low muffled laugh that explained it. Becky
was back there, probably playing a trick on me, or laughing into
the telephone. She had some boy on a string, no doubt. I followed
the sound into the back, catching the scent of My Sin, not bothering
to turn on a light. I started to open the back office door. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">There was Becky. And the candidate. My mouth dropped into a silent
<i>Oh</i>! that would have been comical if it wasn’t genuine. I’d obviously
been about to interrupt something, something... </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Sexual. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">My heart went from my throat, plummeting to my gut, and seemed
to stick there. The rumours I’d dismissed since we were in high
school were true after all. <i>Becky was fast, Becky put out, Becky Did It. She went all the
way.</i> She’d never denied it, but I hadn’t dared ask. I didn’t want
to know. Becky was kissing the candidate, and he had his hand
right on her breast. He was touching her there as bold as anything,
his hand moving in a deliberate, unhurried caress over the soft
blue of her sweater. She arched and swayed against his touch.
She didn’t fight it. </font></p>
<p><i><font face="Georgia" size="2">How could you?</font></i><font face="Georgia" size="2"> I thought. <i>He’s married.</i> </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">But there she was, wedding ring on his finger or not. They were
leaning against a desk as if he’d trapped her, though I suspected
the candidate was more fly than spider. They kissed, equally eager,
and even I could sense their urgency. Hands roamed, explored.
I couldn’t move. I wanted to. Yet I didn’t, and so I watched,
dismayed, my hand still at my mouth to stifle the sound I hadn’t
made. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">After a moment, it felt like his hands were touching <i>me</i>, too. Becky caressed him, assured. She’d done this before. Now
I knew it. She stroked his back and kissed him and she used her
tongue when she did. Her legs were opened like she wanted him
to reach under her skirt. I felt a slow heat creep up through
me. I was embarrassed, and I shouldn’t have lingered, but I did.
</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">They were wrapped up in what they were doing, oblivious to their
surroundings, oblivious to right and wrong. He touched her shamelessly
as they kissed, his hands growing even bolder, roaming up and
down her thighs, pushing her skirt up. As if undecided, he returned
to her breasts. Becky had nice breasts, and I’d seen men look
at them before. I hadn’t noticed the candidate do it, though.
Not until that night, and he was doing a lot more than <i>looking</i>. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">But I was looking, too. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">I watched, torn between fleeing and interrupting. I watched, as
my best friend in the whole world made love to our candidate.
I couldn’t go, though it was wrong to stay. What she was doing
was far worse. I was mesmerised by his hands on her waist, moving
to squeeze her rear, to pull her closer, his other hand cupping
her breast as he kissed her. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Virgin, I watched. And as I watched, the hot flush of embarrassment
– and anger –became a slow burn of desire. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">She wore a skirt and stockings, all very proper. He worked her
sweater up, and I noticed that her bra was very white. The candidate
bent his head and nuzzled at her breasts, and Becky let him. Her
eyes dropped closed and she looked pleased and sleepy at the same
time. That wasn’t the man I knew touching her; that was a stranger.
Ordinarily a handsome man, a man you could trust, a man you’d
vote for, making love to Becky, he looked changed, wild. </font></p>
<p><i><font face="Georgia" size="2">So this is how men really are</font></i><font face="Georgia" size="2">, I thought. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">I couldn’t look away from his hand on her bra, pulling the fabric
away, exposing one rounded breast. Becky’s nipple had risen, changing.
It was dark pink, and hard. So pleasure wasn’t a myth. He bent
and suckled at it, and I felt a quiver between my thighs. I wanted
to stop her, and I wanted to...be her. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">They made soft noises that insinuated of sensations I’d barely
tasted. I shouldn’t see what I was watching, something so private.
But she shouldn’t be doing it. He uncovered the other breast and
moved between them, as I stood motionless in the darkness beyond
the opened door. Like actors on stage, they were in light and
I was hidden, a nobody in the shadows. I didn’t really exist.
Except the sensations I felt were like hot sparks in the dark.
They felt more real than anything else. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Becky unzipped his pants with a grin I’d seen her flash before,
at parties when she danced too close to the boys and sometimes
had whisky on her breath, just like the boys. I was scared for
her when I saw that grin. I felt the same way watching her with
the candidate. The next thing I knew, she had his stiff penis
in her hand. It was like a fleshy club, contrasting with the grey
flannel nest from whence it sprung. I was not like I imagined,
something soft and small like David, tameable, controllable. It
was ugly, and yet the sight of it sent strange sensations shimmering
in me. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">She was touching it, and she wasn’t afraid of it. He groaned,
a rough murmur of pleasure that made me shiver. I wondered what
his skin felt like, my fingers curving against empty palms. She
touched it like she’d touched a lot of them. For a brief moment,
I was fiercely jealous of what she already knew that I didn’t.
</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">There was an unexpected twisting in my belly, a hot hard tug of
wanting. I took a step back, but I didn’t leave. I watched them
through the narrow gap in the opened door. They weren’t expecting
anyone to return to the offices. Had Becky forgotten all about
me? How far would she go with the candidate? </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Farther. He had lifted her bra up. He was suckling at her breast,
nipping at her. His tongue flicked, and she sighed. A hollow giddiness
scattered through me. My mouth was dry and my nipples were hard,
poking against my blouse. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">His hand was up under her skirt, and Becky moaned, moving against
it. He chuckled. They’d flown around the bases. I’d barely kissed
a boy. I was becoming more aroused, could feel a pull in my womb.
Something unknown rocked me like a tide. I’d kissed a boy, yes,
but I’d never felt a fever like I felt watching them. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Becky’s fingers moved up and down his penis, and he liked it.
He thrust against her grip, unbuttoning his shirt, a feral grin
changing him more. Dark hair curled crisp against pinstriped white.
I gasped aloud, or thought I did, when she moved down and his
erect penis touched her mouth. I thought such things were myth,
too. Her lips parted, her lids dropped and she began to suck it.
Tides turned within me. It should have repulsed me, but after
a moment, a hot dark sensation flooded me. I could feel wetness
begin, and pressed my thighs together, hard. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">She did it until he pulled her up with a low groan. Then, aggressive,
he had Becky against the desk, her skirt hiked up high, showing
her stocking tops. She was shameless, laughing as she helped him
pull off her panties. She didn’t brush him away. I blushed, seeing
the shadow of her pubic hair below her belly, seeing her as he
did. But I didn’t look away. I couldn’t look away. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">His trousers came down, she leaned back, and he stood between
her opened thighs, blocking out the rest of the world. Like beginning
a primitive ritual, they moved, and then he began to thrust, and
I realised my hand had crept between my own thighs, pressed tight
against my finger. I was swaying against my fingertips, forced
against the cleft of my cotton panties. I was as brazen as they.
</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">He pumped into her, navigating them places I hadn’t been. Becky’s
calves callipered his hips, and some part of me, the part that
wasn’t rubbing at myself in a distracted fever, noticed that her
heels were worn from walking. Noticed that his buttocks wobbled
slightly in his ardent thrusts. The force of it surprised me and
I wondered if it hurt. I wanted to laugh at how ridiculous they
looked, and yet there was something about it that was viscerally
arousing. Raw and not pretty, this wasn’t romance. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Faster. The urgency intensified, with sharp sighs and a telling
focus. Though they didn’t know it, I was going along with their
flight. My fingers sought what lay between damp curls, slid against
fevered skin. I was watching them... fuck. Heat slithered through
me, leaving strangeness behind. A sudden reaction –</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Like Joan standing in the fire, heat rose through me. My hand
moved faster, harder, blindly seeking only to coax the sensations
to deeper intensity. I needed something, and didn’t know what.
I was close to something, like I’d spent a lifetime in the dark
and now the door was opening. He thrust faster, and groaned with
what they were making and I rode my fingers, nipples brazen, unable
to stop. The door opened wide and light flooded in. We crested.
</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">I was blinded by pleasure, eyes squeezed shut, possessed. Slow,
delicious shudders went through me, making me want to crumple
to the floor like a dropped handkerchief. Another silent <i>Oh</i>! as epiphany blossomed. It felt so completely, absolutely <i>right</i>, like the final note of an aria. Everything resolved, with a
shining note that was the <i>only</i> possible note to be sung. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">My heart was pounding so hard I thought it must be audible, and
my breathing as rough as if I’d just run for my life. I felt like
I’d been touched by divine fire. Then I realised I must have experienced
an orgasm. My first. Not a myth, after all. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">I carefully backed away from the opened door, smoothing my now
rumpled skirt down over my knees. My demure skirt, modest and
suitable for a nice girl. It fit with my short-sleeved, pale pink
blouse, with Peter Pan collar. Good girl all ‘round, that was
me, and I wasn’t the one the candidate was... No. While I’d been
out knocking on doors for him, he’d been... Having back-room sex
with a student. I felt sick again, thinking about it. And instead
of interrupting them, what had I done? </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">I hadn’t rescued Becky. I’d stood there and played with myself,
watching them. And I’d coaxed hot, dark joy from watching. I was
a whore, no better than... I heard the snap of a lighter, imagined
Becky’s knowing smile as she leaned in and the candidate lit her
cigarette, conspiratorial. What they just shared was a secret
between them. And me. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">But Becky knew what it was like to be a woman. I could only guess
–or stand at doors and spy. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">I didn’t want to do that, to stand at doors forever and become
a ghost of myself. I saw myself years ahead, still afraid, still
the good girl. Always the good girl. Spinster schoolteacher, unpaid
volunteer, careful, never daring. Never experiencing anything,
never becoming real. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">I left the offices as quietly as I’d entered. But I didn’t know
where to go after I crept out, changed, <i>dizzy</i> with change. I walked aimlessly, not knowing where I was heading,
and not caring where I ended up. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Where I ended up is another story. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">“You’ll tell me sometime?” Rob asked. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">I smiled. “Of course.” </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Rob didn’t say anything more, just drove, hands steady on the
wheel of his pick-up. Calm and deep, he was my wide blue ocean.
I could swim in him forever, and never really know all of him.
He took my hand and placed it on his lap. A surprising stiffness
met my palm. He was hard. I laughed, and it sounded wickedly grown
up. I was a grown up. The uncertain me of twenty years ago was
just a shadow of who I’d eventually become. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">“There’ll be another campaign,” he said. “But probably not like
your first.” </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">It had been my first in a lot of ways. I knew a little bit more
about the world after that night. When the candidate smiled and
talked proudly about his wife, standing close (but not too close,
after all she wasn’t supposed to be in the spotlight) or his adored
children, I saw him with Becky in the back room, trousers undone,
engorged and thrusting. I saw him fucking her with a feral hunger,
disturbingly primitive. I’d never forget his rear end moving,
intent on pleasure. “No,” I agreed in the present, watching houses
slide by in the night. Lit, shadow, lit, shadow, lit. Streetlight
amber contrasted with the pools of darkness along the highway.
</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Telling my story had affected me, too, or maybe it was just the
wine. I wasn’t thinking so much about campaigns won or lost, or
even of politics. I was thinking about that enticing hardness
in Rob’s trousers. I eased my hand back to where it had been,
and though he was driving, he didn’t dissuade me. “What makes
politicians sexy?” I asked, stroking the tantalising stiffness
in his lap, teasing him. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">“Who says they are?” he countered, my man who never wore a suit
and didn’t seek power. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">“Women seem to think so. Look at all the ones who clustered around
Kissinger.” </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">“Henry?” </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">“Yeah.” </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">“I don’t know, Sandra. Screw politics. What’s the other story?”
His voice had that trace of huskiness I liked. He didn’t care
about politics. He cared about <i>me</i>. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">I smiled. “I’ll tell you after.” </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">“All right.” </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">I loved Rob’s patience. His quiet certainty, the way he kept his
word. I never really trusted men; after all, I’d seen their appetite
and their hypocrisy for myself. And it took a long time not to
feel dirty when I remembered my first taste of pleasure had been
as a spy at the door, watching someone else’s furtive lovemaking.
</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">But I learned that pleasure wasn’t a myth. And opened doors were
everywhere. You could look through them. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Or walk through them. </font></td>
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