6
The mayor’s office was on the third floor of Akron City Hall. I walked through the suite, past staffers at desks, past a receptionist who checked my visitor’s pass and smiled. Laura had arranged the pass. She’d arranged everything.
“Go right in, Mr. Hartley,” the receptionist said. “The mayor is expecting you.”
I’d been Greg Hartley my whole life and nobody had ever said my name with that much deference.
I pushed open the heavy double doors and stepped inside.
The office was what you’d expect. Flags, wood panels, a desk big enough to land a helicopter on.
Portraits of previous mayors on the wall, all of them white, all of them looking vaguely disappointed about something.
Damon was behind the desk in shirtsleeves, tie loosened.
Laura was perched on the corner of the desk, legs crossed, in a skirt and blouse that walked the line between professional and not.
“Greg.” Damon stood and shook my hand. “Thanks for coming. Mind locking the door?”
I locked it as I heard him pick up his phone and tell someone he was in conference and not to be disturbed for an hour. The door was heavy. The walls were thick. The office of the mayor of Akron, Ohio, it turned out, was built for privacy.
The realization hit me as I stood there.
The genius of it. Nobody was going to accuse the mayor of sleeping with his assistant if her husband was in the room.
What kind of affair would involve the husband showing up by appointment?
It was the scandal that couldn’t break, hidden in plain sight behind a visitor’s pass, a locked door, and an hour blocked out in the mayor’s calendar.
I looked at Damon. He was smiling at me. He knew I’d worked it out.
“Take a seat, Greg,” he said, gesturing at a leather chair by the window. “Get comfortable.”
Laura uncrossed her legs. She slid off the desk, walked to Damon, and kissed him, her hand on his tie, pulling him down to her.
I sat in the chair by the window and watched my wife kiss the mayor of Akron in his office on a Tuesday afternoon while staffers typed emails fifteen feet away on the other side of a locked door.
Damon’s term was four years. I did the math. Two hundred eight Tuesdays, give or take holidays and city council meetings. Laura was already undoing his belt.
I watched them. Laura on her knees behind the mayor’s desk, her head bobbing slowly, Damon’s hand in her hair, his eyes half-closed.
The American flag six feet away. A framed photo of the governor on the wall.
The absolute absurdity of it sitting right alongside the absolute reality of my cock getting hard in the leather chair.
Laura pulled off him and stood. She hiked her skirt up around her waist, turned, and bent over the desk. She looked back at Damon over her shoulder. Then at me. The same expression she’d had that first night at the campaign office. Half dare, half plea. Except the dare was winning now.
Damon stepped behind her. He pushed her underwear to the side and slid into her in one long stroke. Laura’s palms went flat on the desk. A pen rolled off the edge. Somewhere beyond the locked doors, a phone was ringing.
“Quieter this time,” Damon murmured. “Walls aren’t that thick.”
Laura bit her lip and nodded.
He started to move, and I watched my wife try to be fucked silently by the mayor of Akron, and fail, small sounds escaping through her teeth on every thrust, her fingers gripping the edge of the desk where the previous mayor had probably signed proclamations.
I had my cock out. Of course I did. I stroked slowly, watching them, listening to Laura try not to make noise, Damon’s steady breathing, and the distant sound of the receptionist answering a call.
My wife was getting fucked in City Hall, and I was jerking off in a chair that taxpayers had paid for, and somewhere in this building, someone was processing parking permits.
Laura came with her face buried in the crook of her arm, a muffled sound that she swallowed before it could reach the door. Her body shook against the desk. Damon held still inside her, his hands on her hips, waiting for her to finish. Patient. The way he did everything.
He started again. Harder now.
Laura’s fingers were white on the desk. She turned her head and found me, her cheek flat against the wood, her eyes glassy. She reached one hand toward me.
I stood, crossed the office, and took her hand. She laced her fingers through mine and held on while Damon fucked her harder, the desk creaking, the flag swaying slightly on its pole from the vibration. Laura squeezed my hand on every thrust.
Damon came inside her with a sound he buried in the back of his throat. He held there, his forehead dropping to the space between Laura’s shoulder blades. Laura’s hand tightened in mine. She closed her eyes.
I didn’t finish. Not this time. I put my cock away and stood there holding my wife’s hand while the mayor caught his breath against her back.
I thought about the four years ahead of us, and the locked door, and the receptionist who would smile at me on my way out, the life we were building in the spaces no one else could see.
Laura opened her eyes. She looked up at me. “Same time next week?”
“I’ll check my calendar,” I said.
Damon laughed against her back.
Laura squeezed my hand one more time. Then she let go, straightened her skirt, smoothed her hair, and became the mayor’s assistant again.
I unlocked the door. Laura was already at her desk in the outer office, legs crossed, reading something on her screen. She didn’t look up as I passed. The receptionist smiled at me.
“Have a good afternoon, Mr. Hartley.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I will.”
I walked out of City Hall and into the Akron sunshine. A woman was walking a dog. A man was feeding a parking meter. A city bus went past with Damon’s face on the side, “MAYOR ELLIS DELIVERING FOR AKRON” in blue letters under the photo.
I looked at the photo. The photo looked back at me. I started laughing in the middle of the sidewalk. I couldn’t stop.