Startled, Rachel wheeled, dropping the coaster on the floor. She knelt awkwardly to retrieve it. As she grasped the coaster, she turned to see the President of the United States gazing down at her with an amused grin.
'I'm not royalty, Ms. Sexton. There's really no need to kneel.'
7
Senator Sedgewick Sexton savored the privacy of his Lincoln stretch limousine as it snaked through Washington's morning traffic toward his office. Across from him, Gabrielle Ashe, his twenty-four-year-old personal assistant, read him his daily schedule. Sexton was barely listening.
I love Washington, he thought, admiring the assistant's perfect shape beneath her cashmere sweater. Power is the greatest aphrodisiac of all… and it brings women like this to D.C. in droves.
Gabrielle was a New York Ivy Leaguer with dreams of being a senator herself one day. She'll make it too, Sexton thought. She was incredible-looking and sharp as a whip. Above all, she understood the rules of the game.
Gabrielle Ashe was black, but her tawny coloring was more of a deep cinnamon or mahogany, the kind of comfortable in-between that Sexton knew bleeding heart 'whites' could endorse without feeling like they were giving away the farm. Sexton described Gabrielle to his cronies as Halle Berry's looks with Hillary Clinton's brains and ambition, although sometimes he thought even that was an understatement.
Gabrielle had been a tremendous asset to his campaign since he'd promoted her to his personal campaign assistant three months ago. And to top it all off, she was working for free. Her compensation for a sixteen-hour workday was learning the ropes in the trenches with a seasoned politician.
Of course, Sexton gloated, I've persuaded her to do a bit more than just work. After promoting Gabrielle, Sexton had invited her to a late night 'orientation session' in his private office. As expected, his young assistant arrived starstruck and eager to please. With a slow-moving patience mastered over decades, Sexton worked his magic… building up Gabrielle's trust, carefully stripping away her inhibitions, exhibiting tantalizing control, and finally seducing her right there in his office.
Sexton had little doubt the encounter had been one of the most sexually gratifying experiences of the young woman's life, and yet, in the light of the day, Gabrielle clearly regretted the indiscretion. Embarrassed, she offered to resign. Sexton refused. Gabrielle stayed on, but she made her intentions very clear. The relationship had been strictly business ever since.
Gabrielle's pouty lips were still moving. '… don't want you to be lackadaisical going into this CNN debate this afternoon. We still don't know who the White House is sending as opposition. You'll want to peruse these notes I typed.' She handed him a folder.
Sexton took the folder, savoring the scent of her perfume mixed with the plush leather seats.
'You aren't listening,' she said.
'Certainly am.' He grinned. 'Forget about this CNN debate. Worst case scenario, the White House snubs me by sending some low-level campaign intern. Best case scenario, they send a bigwig, and I eat him for lunch.'
Gabrielle frowned. 'Fine. I've included a list of the most probable hostile topics in your notes.'
'The usual suspects no doubt.'
'With one new entry. I think you might face some hostile backlash from the gay community for your comments last night on Larry King.'
Sexton shrugged, barely listening. 'Right. The same-sex marriage thing.'
Gabrielle gave him a disapproving look. 'You did come out against it pretty strongly.'
Same-sex marriages, Sexton thought in disgust. If it were up to me, the faggots wouldn't even have the right to vote. 'Okay, I'll turn it down a notch.'
'Good. You've been pushing the envelope a bit on some of these hot topics lately. Don't get cocky. The public can turn in an instant. You're gaining now, and you have momentum. Just ride it out. There's no need to hit the ball out of the park today. Just keep it in play.'
'Any news from the White House?'
Gabrielle looked pleasantly baffled. 'Continued silence. It's official; your opponent has become the 'Invisible Man.''
Sexton could barely believe his good fortune lately. For months, the President had been working hard on the campaign trail. Then suddenly, a week ago, he had locked himself in the Oval Office, and nobody had seen or heard from him since. It was as if the President simply could not face Sexton's groundswell of voter support.
Gabrielle ran a hand through her straightened black hair. 'I hear the White House campaign staff is as confused as we are. The President is offering no explanation for his vanishing act, and everyone over there is furious.'
'Any theories?' Sexton asked.
Gabrielle gazed at him over her scholarly glasses. 'As it turns out, I got some interesting data this morning from a contact of mine in the White House.'
Sexton recognized the look in her eyes. Gabrielle Ashe had scored some insider information again. Sexton wondered if she were giving some presidential aide backseat blow jobs in exchange for campaign secrets. Sexton didn't care… so long as the information kept coming.
'Rumor has it,' his assistant said, lowering her voice, 'the President's strange behavior all started last week after an emergency private briefing with the administrator of NASA. Apparently the President emerged from the meeting looking dazed. He immediately cleared his schedule, and he's been in close contact with NASA ever since.'
Sexton certainly liked the sound of that. 'You think maybe NASA delivered some more bad news?'
'Seems a logical explanation,' she said hopefully. 'Although it would have to be pretty critical to make the President drop everything.'
Sexton considered it. Obviously, whatever was going on with NASA had to be bad news. Otherwise the President would throw it in my face. Sexton had been pounding the President pretty hard on NASA funding lately. The space agency's recent string of failed missions and gargantuan budget overruns had earned NASA the dubious honor of becoming Sexton's unofficial poster child against big government overspending and inefficiency. Admittedly, attacking NASA — one of the most prominent symbols of American pride — was not the way most politicians would think of winning votes, but Sexton had a weapon few other politicians had — Gabrielle Ashe. And her impeccable instincts.
The savvy young woman had come to Sexton's attention several months ago when she was working as a coordinator in Sexton's Washington campaign office. With Sexton trailing badly in the primary polls and his message of government overspending falling on deaf ears, Gabrielle Ashe wrote him a note suggesting a radical new campaign angle. She told the senator he should attack NASA's huge budget overruns and continued White House bailouts as the quintessential example of President Herney's careless overspending.
'NASA is costing Americans a fortune,' Gabrielle wrote, including a list of financial figures, failures, and bailouts. 'Voters have no idea. They would be horrified. I think you should make NASA a political issue.'
Sexton groaned at her naivete. 'Yeah, and while I'm at it, I'll rail against singing the national anthem at baseball games.'
In the weeks that followed, Gabrielle continued to send information about NASA across the senator's desk. The more Sexton read, the more he realized this young Gabrielle Ashe had a point. Even by government agency standards, NASA was an astounding money pit — expensive, inefficient, and, in recent years, grossly incompetent.
One afternoon Sexton was doing an on-air interview about education. The host was pressing Sexton about where he would find funding for his promised overhaul of public schools. In response, Sexton decided to test Gabrielle's NASA theory with a half-joking response. 'Money for education?' he said. 'Well, maybe I'll cut the space program in half. I figure if NASA can spend fifteen billion a year in space, I should be able to spend seven and a half billion on the kids here on earth.'
