Page 22 of American King (New Camelot Trilogy 3)
I catch her wrist. “Bold, naughty girl.”
“Hurry, Mr. President,” she murmurs, looking up at me through her eyelashes. “I feel like I could come just from your command alone right now, I’m so wound up.”
My dick, still heavy and hard and wet, jolts against my zipper at her words. I’m grateful for the concealing effect of the tuxedo jacket, but I do press into her so she can feel the ramrod length of me against her belly. “I like this idea very much,” I murmur back to her. “Of you coming from my command alone.”
“I’d rather have you inside me,” she whispers plaintively.
“Mmm. Me too. Are you sure I have to go give this speech?”
She gives a sighing little laugh. “I suppose you must.” She fiddles with my bow tie once more and rises up to kiss me gently on the mouth. “You’ll knock them dead.”
I kiss her back and then leave to find the coordinator.
THE SPEECH GOES WELL—THE Luther Center probably would have preferred that I spoke mainly about the arts and sciences, but Uri and I included several sections about education as well, in anticipation of a school reform initiative I hope to push through later this year. Afterwards, there is the usual array of handshakes and pictures and conversations, there is dancing, there is the expected bevy of powerful people hoping to speak into my ear. In short, it is a typical night in Washington, and ordinarily, it would take tremendous powers of focus and memory to distinguish it from any other night afterwards.
But three things set it apart.
The first is—painfully and inevitably—Embry. While at the White House today, I kept myself busy and sequestered with my wife, and even with the few meetings I couldn’t escape, I purposefully stayed free of my phone and any chatter from my staff. But as the night goes on, it becomes clear that the rest of the political world exploded after Embry gave his official resignation speech today.
“Did you know?” people ask. “Did you want him to leave? Did you make him leave?”
No and no and fuck you if you think I would ever make that man leave me, but I can’t say those things, I can’t deliver those honest answers with all the bitter pain they deserve. I have to make polite noises and vague explanations and benign well wishes for his future, and how do they not all see? How do they not hear the trickle of my heart’s blood dripping out of my chest, how do they not see the scooped-out pain in my eyes, how can they not hear every desperate plea and every rasping sob I’ve let out in the last twenty-four hours?
Merlin rescues me eventually, inserting himself into a cloud of speculation and curiosity that no amount of calm, noncommittal statements on my part can clear, and he pulls me away on the pretense of discussing something confidential. But when we reach the edge of the room, he merely hands me a flute of champagne from a circulating tray and says, “Drink this.”
“I’m fine,” I insist.
“No,” Merlin says. “You were performing fine, and doing a wonderful job at it, but another five minutes of that and the seams would’ve started to show. Take a minute to breathe.”
“I feel like I’ve been taking a minute to breathe all day. I’m ready to stop breathing and start fixing things.”
“Well, you’ve already stopped breathing,” Merlin observes with an edged perception that makes me uncomfortable. “Perhaps you haven’t breathed properly since last night. Which is all the more reason for you to breathe now. Take comfort in your queen. We can discuss preliminary election strategy later this week.”
The casual way he says it strikes some new and horrible understanding into me. Embry is gone, and his leaving is now so permanent and acknowledged that it’s almost mundane. Business as usual. Just one more angle to fold into the strategy. Don’t worry about that hollow echo in my chest, let’s just turn to item two in the handout…
“Drink,” Merlin says. “Do it for me if you won’t do it for yourself.”
I have no energy left to argue. I drain the flute in one movement and set it on a nearby table. Merlin gives me a moment or two to compose myself, and then he says, “Better?”
I’m not actually, but I believe very stridently in not making my unhappiness or discomfort another person’
s problem. I’m also not a liar, so I simply say, “I will be.”
“Yes, you will.”
“It embarrasses me to admit this,” I say, looking out over the dim ballroom, “but no matter how cautiously I spoke or thought about it, no matter how much I told myself I was prepared for the possibility of something different, beneath all that, I never doubted that I would win again. And I am only realizing this now as it becomes apparent that I might lose.”
Merlin makes a skeptical noise. “I hope this doubt isn’t because of Embry?”
“Why shouldn’t it be? He’s a decorated soldier, he’s become a skilled politician, he has all the right connections. He’s more charming than me, besides.”
“You’re looking at him with a lover’s eye,” Merlin says frankly. “And not looking at yourself at all. I think this reelection could be personally uncomfortable, but politically quite easy.”
“All the same,” I say, putting my hands in my pockets and scanning the room for Greer. “I want to meet with Kay and Trieste about how much of our agenda we can get accomplished this term.”
“Maxen, that agenda was calculated precisely for two terms. Even then, it’s almost certainly too ambitious. There is no way we can accomplish the rest of that list in the time we have left.”
I finally find Greer, a glint of near-white hair under the golden lights of the dance floor. The band is playing a waltz now, and the music is a shard of glass against my throat. How many times had I held Embry in my arms to music just like this? Can I number all the times I’ll never get to dance with him again? Do I even want to try?
