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Our candidate lost. 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. 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. Politics is an addictive pastime, even on the local level. Each campaign has its own story, becomes the year that... 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 winner or loser. 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 – And sex. Oh, yes, there’s so often sex. 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. Maybe it was the end of another race, leaving that curious flatness, the letdown of losing, that made me feel nostalgic. The emptiness of over, at least for now. All campaigns coming to an end reminded me of my first. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. There was Becky. And the candidate. My mouth dropped into a silent Oh! that would have been comical if it wasn’t genuine. I’d obviously been about to interrupt something, something... Sexual. 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. Becky was fast, Becky put out, Becky Did It. She went all the way. 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. How could you? I thought. He’s married. 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. After a moment, it felt like his hands were touching me, 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. 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 looking. But I was looking, too. 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. Virgin, I watched. And as I watched, the hot flush of embarrassment – and anger –became a slow burn of desire. 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. So this is how men really are, I thought. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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? 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 – 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. 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 Oh! as epiphany blossomed. It felt so completely, absolutely right, like the final note of an aria. Everything resolved, with a shining note that was the only possible note to be sung. 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. 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? 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. But Becky knew what it was like to be a woman. I could only guess –or stand at doors and spy. 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. I left the offices as quietly as I’d entered. But I didn’t know where to go after I crept out, changed, dizzy with change. I walked aimlessly, not knowing where I was heading, and not caring where I ended up. Where I ended up is another story. “You’ll tell me sometime?” Rob asked. I smiled. “Of course.” 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. “There’ll be another campaign,” he said. “But probably not like your first.” 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. 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. “Who says they are?” he countered, my man who never wore a suit and didn’t seek power. “Women seem to think so. Look at all the ones who clustered around Kissinger.” “Henry?” “Yeah.” “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 me. I smiled. “I’ll tell you after.” “All right.” 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. But I learned that pleasure wasn’t a myth. And opened doors were everywhere. You could look through them. Or walk through them. |
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12.07.06: Scarlet Letters -- in case it isn't glaringly obvious -- is currently
on an extended hiatus. The web has changed, we've changed, and
we're trying to figure out how we both fit together now, which isn't a process we want to rush. If you're looking for more current SL-related content, you can
have check out upcoming books from editor Heather Corinna and previous co-editor Hanne Blank, check out Heather's current sexuality sites, or explore sites through the femmerotic network. We hope to be back with you soon, as fresh, challenging and
unexpected as ever.
In the meantime, by all means, enjoy our years of past content,
all of which still remain in the public and subscription areas.
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