The Politician's Husband

"Actually, I believe the congresswoman is Puerto Rican," Fred said.

Newman looked at Kilgallen's chief of staff with irritation. "You thought you'd tear off some beaner pussy? Is that better, numbnuts?" he barked, shooting his glare from Kilgallen to his COS.

Fred knew that the best answer to that question was no answer.

"What am I gonna do," Kilgallen wailed.

"Does WAPO have anything on you?"

"They have photos of the bitch coming to my house and leaving in the same clothes the next morning. My wife was in Ohio but no one knows about that. She's giving a statement that she was home and that nothing happened. That's costing me another post-nup." Kilgallen had a bitter, resigned look on his face.

"That's good. Your wife's providing covering fire for your stupid ass. So, what else do you have? What about Tits Guevara? Is she getting in line? What about her husband? Isn't he some kind of sheriff or something?"

"He's a Deputy US Marshal," Fred said. "Like on that TV show."

Senator Newman had no idea what the fuck Dipshit's chief of staff was going on about. The only TV that he watched was Fox News and he was about done with them. Ever since they had fired Booker Henderson for saying on-air that Hitler had been badly maligned by the main stream media and that slavery was a misunderstood social institution, Newman had stopped watching them.

Newman rolled his eyes at Kilgallen's chief of staff and made a mental note to talk to Dipshit about replacing his COS. Norm had a nephew that was looking for a job after recently being laid off.

"Julia was going to talk to him last night and tell him what was going on and ask for him to give a statement to the Post. She was pretty sure that he would agree to give one."

"'Pretty sure?'" Newman repeated. "She's going to tell her husband that she fucked a congressman, a congressman who her constituents despise by the way, and he's going to be okay with it?" He gave Kilgallen an incredulous look.

"That's what she said." Congressman Kilgallen stared balefully out of his window overlooking the Capital grounds. It had taken thirty-five congressional votes for him to become Speaker of the House. No Democrats and very few of his own party had wanted him as speaker. Some members of his own party had even voted for people that were not house members, rather than vote for him. Vladimir Putin had received three votes for Speaker during the early voting rounds and someone had written in "Hitler's Butthole" for one vote. Kilgallen was still pissed about that. He didn't know if that was an actual vote for a part of Hitler's anatomy or whether someone was floating a new nickname for him as Speaker of the House. Either way, since it was not a vote for Dennis Kilgallen, it was a vote against him. He had sold his soul to the far-right wing of the party in order to secure his position as house speaker. The idea of losing that over pussy was a bitter pill to swallow.

Senator Newman just looked at Kilgallen as he sat sobbing. He didn't think he had ever seen a more pathetic sight in DC. Or at least since John Boehner was speaker and had to show pictures of his new son-in-law.

+++

Julia was livid when she arrived home to her Silver Springs condo. Her husband had not once answered his phone or responded to her texts. She had found the contact information for the WAPO reporter and realized that Landon had never asked for it. How was he going to reach out to John Moody without a name or contact information?

Landon was not home but had left a note on the kitchen counter.

Julia.

Have to go out of town and escort Maurice Bendrix back to DC. Back in a couple of days.

Landon

The note served to further irritate Julia, but it explained why Lan had not responded. If he was in the air, he was incommunicado.

Julia decided to call the reporter, John Moody, herself.

"Hi John," she said when he answered. "It's Julianna Diaz-Rojas. Did my husband get a chance to give you a statement?"

"We spoke," his answer was a bit reserved, Julia thought.

"So, you are clear that he knew I was staying over with Congressman Kilgallen and his wife?"

"Like I said, we spoke," Moody replied.

Julia felt the first waves of panic rising. "What did my husband say to you? Wasn't he very clear that he knew about my visit?"

"I think this is a conversation you need to have with your husband," he replied before hanging up.

Julia looked at her phone in shock. She had never had a reporter hang up on her. She picked up Landon's note and re-read it. He had never before given the name of the prisoner that he was transporting. She typed "Maurice Bendrix" into Google but the only reference she found was as a character in a Graham Greene novel titled "The End of the Affair" which she vaguely recalled was about...infidelity." Julia suddenly felt light headed and dropped heavily onto the sofa.

+++

If the previous day had been an eight on the 1-10 chaos scale, today was a 100000. Reporters were everywhere. Phones had to be disconnected or turned off. The Post story had broken this morning; first in the on-line edition and then in print.

The Senate Majority Leader was waiting for Julia when she arrived at her office. She felt weighted down and barely had enough energy to walk from her car to her office. She recognized the beginning of depression and she felt helpless to do anything about it. The last person she wanted to face was Senator Skip Segal.

Segal walked with Julia into her office, telling her chief of staff to leave them alone.

"Is there anything else we need to talk about? The confession that your husband recorded was pretty well all-encompassing. I have never heard anyone so thoroughly torch their own marriage and career. I mean, it's almost awe-inspiring. It's like you came up with plan and stuck to it. First thing, how do I ruin my marriage; admit to cheating? Check. Admit to having worked as a prostitute? Check. Then you said to yourself, hey, it's not enough I'm ruining my marriage; how can set fire to my career? Cheating? Been there; done that. Prostitution? Yes, please. Have sex with the senior member of the opposite party who I despise? Sign me up!"

Skip Segal looked at Julia and shook his head in mock admiration, "It's like you're the love child of Wilbur Mills and Gary Condit."

Julia sat behind her desk and stared morosely at Senator Segal. She had no idea who those two people were, but she knew that she had just been insulted.

"So, this healthcare bill that you were so desperate to get passed? You know it's dead in the water, right? The closest this country has come to having meaningful healthcare becoming the law of the land and it's DOA because you couldn't keep your legs closed. And then you confessed everything to your husband."

Skip Segal looked down at Julia and shook his head at the waste of it all while she sobbed at her desk.

+++

"So, what happens now," Coleman "Cole" Kelly asked his cousin. He and Landon were sipping bourbon on the spacious front porch of the Kelly family ranch. Landon had arrived last night and Cole had driven down this morning.

Landon took a sip of his Milam & Greene Triple Cask bourbon and sighed. Texas distilleries had started producing some of the finest sipping whiskey in the world and for his money, the three ladies behind Milam & Greene were the best of the best.

"Divorce for sure," he replied. "I'm not sure her career will survive this, but then again, I don't much care. I have an appointment with Darejan Sullivan in the family law department over at B-Mc-G to get the ball rolling. I'm taking a couple of weeks of vacation to fish and relax."

Cole nodded. He was an Army CID Special Agent currently assigned to Fort Cavazos. That was convenient to the family ranch which was located fifty miles southwest of Austin and a couple hour's drive from the base. Cole was a frequent visitor to the ranch to see his adopted sister and his grandmother. And occasionally his father who lived in Austin proper. Cole took a swallow of bourbon. He was commiserating with his cousin. He had previously had wife problems of his own.

"I can take a few days off. We can spend a few days riding around the ranch. How long's it been since you sat a horse? I'll bet you condo living softened you up."

"You know, riding around the ranch actually sounds pretty good but it's been a while since I last rode. I guess that's what I need; trading one pain in the ass for another."

Landon took another sip of whiskey and sighed.

All characters in this story are fictional and are not based on any real people, living or dead. Nudge, nudge; wink, wink; say not more.

Cole Kelly will have his own story to tell in the near future.