50. Graham
50
GRAHAM
T he chauffeur holds open the limo door for me and my aide as we leave the Meet the Press studio in DC Sunday morning. Our next stop is a major conservative news outlet for yet another interview, but I fully expect this next one will be easier to get through.
“Do I have another shirt? This one’s got pit stains,” I tell Brad.
“She was tough, but you did great, Senator.”
“Did I?”
“I mean—in terms of a master’s class in pivoting and deflection. Yeah.”
Yeah. I’ve gotten pretty good at that over the last few weeks. With the opposing party denying the senate quorum and therefore a vote on the sex trafficking bill, those of us who wrote the legislation are hitting the press with full force, pushing the popular, if controversial points of the bill with our base—hoping they’ll come out, call their senators, and force the Dems onto the floor.
The handful of wavering Republicans will cave to public pressure if we keep applying it, so I’m confident we’ll eke out the votes, even with our razor-thin majority, but until then, I’ll be engaged in the campaign to make sure the bill remains a hot topic of conversation in the public square.
The skill set I bring to the senate isn’t experience or a deep knowledge of politics, but rather what I learned during my few years as a county prosecutor. I can talk. I can make a point. I can focus on the facts I want heard and ignore the ones I don’t. It doesn’t hurt that I look good on camera, too.
I wince at the thought—another camera springing to mind. Silas’s phone, capturing what he did to me two weekends ago in the Hamptons. I’m obsessed with the memory. It’s turned my cage into a different sort of torture device. I’m constantly horny.
Is it still chastity if I’m fucking myself with a dildo every chance I get?
I’m pretty sure I know what Father Michael would say, but I have to do something until it passes. And I have to believe it’s going to pass because even now, every bump in the road has my cock aching and my balls filling.
To distract myself, I let Brad help me out of my jacket and into a new shirt, but his hands grazing my body only make my situation worse. I’m not attracted to my aide. He’s a blue blood with a Princeton education and conservative views that would rival my father’s. He keeps his blonde hair neatly trimmed in a slick, professional crew cut, and his body screams I spend three hours in the gym every day . He’s fucked his way through most of the female aides in congress already and is constantly complaining about “bitches trying to jump on my dick.”
On the plus side, he takes good notes and anticipates me well. I can put up with his fuck boy energy if he does his job.
Passing this bill has consumed both our lives for the last two weeks in DC. Between committee meetings, closed door conferences and interviews, it’s become more important than eating or sleeping. It feels like we’re driving a car straight toward a concrete barrier at full speed. We may crash, or we might bust right through it .
At this point, I’m not sure which I’d prefer.
I’m growing to loathe this bill and everything it stands for, but the benefit to my family’s business is substantial. Legislation like this is never about only one thing. In this case, it sets the stage for generous government funding for Catholic causes—pregnancy “resource” centers. Adoption services. Click-bait news pieces that will drive more people to biased media outlets like my father’s who feed off the ugliest impulses of Americans to hear salacious stories about sex rings being busted up and those who run them being arrested, tried, and maybe deported.
Even talk of the bill’s passage has drummed up multiple conspiracy theories that right-wing podcasters and YouTubers are spreading, using pieces from my father’s outlets to disseminate information which is often misleading, but holds enough truth to pique interest and send people into echo chambers and rabbit holes.
The advertising dollars are already pouring in for my family.
I try to focus on the few people this bill might actually help. The true victims—the young people who are being exploited and sold, moved across state lines to film porn or prostitute themselves, forced into drug addictions and repeatedly traumatized. I know it happens. But the truth is, there are already laws on the books to help them. This would just put it front and center—at least until the next big thing comes along.
Sex, as they say, sells.
And it’s all I can fucking think about.
I’m so exhausted—so sick of all of this. This isn’t what I signed up for when I ran for this seat, but at the same time, I don’t know what the hell I expected. What I didn’t expect was to feel this dirty. Like a coat of slime is constantly covering me, and no shower in the world could wash it off.
The self-hatred I’ve wrestled with my entire life is a noose around my neck, tugging tighter with every day, every interview, every lie or misleading detail that spills from my mouth like I’m reciting the alphabet.
The limo pulls to a stop at the curb in front of the next TV studio. I shove my conscience to the back burner and step out of the limousine ready to force some more smiles, pretending to be the man I’m supposed to be.
I wasn’t sure what to think the morning after I cornered Silas in the Hamptons when he texted me the video he recorded.
He sent no words along with it, which made me wonder whether he only wanted to prove to me he really did it—really recorded himself degrading and fucking me while I showcased exactly how much I wanted it.
I’m not sure he meant for me to get off to it as many times as I have.
For me to cling to it like a precious memento of the last time we were ever together, but that’s exactly what I’ve done.
It would certainly be harder to deny this one if it got out. So many aspects of the video give away where and when it was filmed. Anyone who’s ever been in that bathroom more than once over the last few years would recognize the original Kandinsky watercolor on the wall behind us. The bathroom was remodeled only last summer. The previous counter was black—this one Carrera marble. The walls used to be covered in floral wallpaper. No Kandinsky on a background of white shiplap.
And then there’s my face—the smattering of premature gray in my beard that wasn’t there a year ago.
Silas wouldn’t know any of that, though—other than the grays—although I’m not sure he looked at me long enough to notice them. It all happened so fast. It was brutal and awful and craved. God, I’d craved it.
But now? If I thought the way I wanted him that day was harsh, the way I want him now is obliterating. The fact that I’m still functioning is either proof that God works miracles, or I’m capable of total dissociation, and I don’t know which of those ideas disturbs me more.
The second interview is easy, but the third is miserable, pitting me against a Democratic senator with very strong feelings and a reporter who clearly has her own bias not in my favor.
All I can do during that one is try not to say anything stupid and make myself go viral in a bad way. Keeping a straight face and not coming across as condescending is my only goal, and Brad assures me I managed it, but I want to watch the interview right away.
He doesn’t get it to me until I’m home.
After the divorce, my father rented me a townhouse in DC. For the first two months, he came to town with me. We ordered take-out. Watched movies. Talked politics among other things. I can no longer say my dad doesn’t know anything about me. I know more than I ever wanted to know about him, too. But my mother wasn’t happy with all his time away, so he’s delegated babysitting duty to a security service. Unlike Dad, they stay outside.
Still, it still feels like I can’t take a breath without it being noted for my father’s records. The townhouse is spacious and light, unlike the place I share with my sister and her kids in Manhattan. I love the quiet here. The relative privacy. The dildo that makes me make noises too loud for the thin walls in the Upper West Side apartment.
The bench in my shower where it’s suctioned to the tile is where I head the moment I get home. I tried two others before finding this one—it’s a garish purple, but it’s almost the exact size and shape of Silas.
If it didn’t vibrate, I doubt it would get me off while I’m wearing the cage, but because it does, the orgasms are swift and bone-rattling. Sometimes I ejaculate, sometimes I can’t. Sometimes it hurts, and sometimes it feels so fucking good, I go for two.
With my phone in a Ziplock bag and the shower spraying too hot water, I ride the fake cock in the motions I’ve now memorized from the video, climaxing with myself once again.
Instead of taking the cage off to wash myself, I use the shower nozzle and spray the water directly through the vents.
Once I’m out of the shower, I get into bed naked and watch the interview I’m most concerned about. Brad was right. I did a good job. There’s very little in it that could be used to make me look bad. If anything, I’m bland as hell, and I was able to counterpoint Senator Carver without sounding like a zealot. His claims of the legislation being a Pandora’s box that will pave the way to dystopia on the other hand? He’s the one who actually sounds nuts.
It’s just a trafficking bill for fuck’s sake. Surely he doesn’t want his kids kidnapped while he turns his back on them at his local Target. That’s basically all this particular legislation does. Well, that and the sex work deterrence part. But think about it—if we can arrest the kids we catch selling themselves and put them into the federal system, it might be their only way out of a bad situation. We could reunite families.
I can’t use that line in an interview though. It opens the door to one of the Dems favorite topics: prison reform. When did the world become such a mess?
I check Silas’s location after I order dinner. He’s at the Eastmoor, but he shouldn’t be for much longer. I watch his dot, thinking about what he said before he fucked me on the bathroom vanity. About how he already got laid that day. I’m convinced he has someone. A boyfriend or a lover. Certainly he’s not seeing clients in the Hamptons. Although, I suppose he could be.
This other UES building he’s in at least once a week…more of ten lately…means a relationship. What does it mean then, that he fucked me?
Nothing.
He wanted proof. He got it. And I let him have it.
What does it say about me that I’ve got more anxiety about the fact that he has someone else in his life than the fact that he has my future ruin caught on tape?
Who knows…maybe he sent it to my father, too. Although I feel certain Dad would have mentioned it and been very, very annoyed.
I like having a secret with Silas again. So much I crave another one.
Until now, I’ve managed not to respond to his text. But short of trapping myself in a room with him again, I don’t see how I could convince him to see me, which is a more devastating truth now than ever. But I could try. Then I’d know.
Because maybe seeing me unlocked something inside him, too? Is that too far-fetched to hope for? We were in love once. Our chemistry is still palpable.
But he’s angry. He hates me. Justifiably.
What would I have to do…?
Me
What would I have to do to get you to fuck me again?
Silas
You realize phone records are admissible.
Fuck. Oh well.
He’s talking to me, though.
Me
That doesn’t answer my question.
Silas
I could use a video of you sucking my cock. That might come in handy.
Me
Can I text you when I get back in town?
Silas
Jesus. No. Get a fucking grip. You’re not coming anywhere near me again.
Me
I’ll beg.
Silas
Of course you would. Senator Cockwhore. Trust me, your mouth comes anywhere near my dick and you won’t be able to talk for a week.
I cup my swelling balls and give the thin skin a pinch to settle them down.
Me
I’m willing to risk it.
Silas
Pathetic. Fuck off.
Me
Please. I can’t stop watching the video. I miss you so much.
The message sits as unread.
When I check it the next morning, it’s the same.
His dot on my location app has disappeared as well.
He’s blocked me. He shut me out.
I try not to, do everything I can to hold it back, but after a few minutes, what he’s done clicks, and I’m kneeling in front of the toilet in the bathroom, puking bile and wishing I would die.