Still Trying To Understand Whoring

"They did the dirty deed in your office all right," Karen said thoughtfully. "In the video, Debra's obviously showing her pussy to someone sitting behind your desk, and she gets a great athletic boffing on your leather couch."

There was a revealing silence.

"But!" I said. "Get to your big, eloquent 'But' before you burst."

Strange in the extreme that we could laugh! It was interesting that I could momentarily enjoy such benign perversity.

"My butt is not big," Karen said with a mocking grimace. "But! Our star stud in this DVD production never showed his face in the video, but your face in the still pictures was clumsily photo shopped."

"Thanks, Karen," I said seriously. "Was my grandfather's clock in the video and pictures?"

"Of course," she said. "It was right behind the couch where it has always been."

This was a girl for all seasons. I was clinging religiously to my right to employ derivative words. "Girl" is a word concept for delving into the beauty of innocence, intuitive purity if you will. ir

"In Mother Nature's savage world," I said with didactic mockery, "angels walk where devils fear to tread."

Systematic behavior undergirds civilized life. Norms are the nuts and bolts of all governing cultures. As my wife and daughter deconstructed my life, I focused on holding together the integral parts.

Since the summer before my first semester in middle school, I have collected clocks. My collection now consisted of interesting time measuring devices from all regions of the globe, and my office walls were obscured by hundreds of my discoveries.

Each clock provided esoteric memories of travels far and wide. Morgan had accompanied me to the edges of the planet, and the time pieces and chronographs told our stories for us. I had a tendency to overstate their dramatic effect, though many had played important roles in the rise and fall of kings.

"Karen, I want you to remember my stressing the importance of my grandfather's clock in this conversation," I said without turning to her. "Clocks often have given testimonials to the incredible achievements and failures of their owners."

As Karen studied my grandfather clock, I told her about the arrogant wood carver cum tinkerer who had conceived the six-foot-tall work of art as my wife and I had watched.

Smirking Karl was used and scarred. No one doubted that he considered Morgan prime puta; or that he would have wagered his life that he would bed her.

Keeping his malt whisky at hand as he chiseled, however, he had captured an excellent representation of Morgan's face on the clock's large lower panel.

Morgan denied vehemently that he had seduced her; and since I could not substantiate my doubts, we managed to leave Scotland with our marriage marginally intact. As you will see in due time, I made that clock a part of my obligatory paranoia.

Silence in some instances is worth more than gold or diamonds. This was such a time.

Karen's eye panned from the face of the grandfather clock, brightening progressively as her eyes met mine. She smiled conspiratorially.

She knew.

"You are more than the sum of your parts," I said laconically. "I would ask you to reveal your age, but I never do that to beautiful descendants of Dolly Madison."

"And you are a wizard," she responded, smiling enigmatically. "How did you know?"

"Dolly is a favorite figure from D.C. lore," I said seriously. "She was one of the first survivors of the Potomac's political swamp, a womanly woman dedicated to her man and tough as nails in the slime fight that occurred as her husband won the presidency."

"I am a descendant of a sister of Dolly's six times removed," Karen laughed. "Why is that important to you?"

"Genes will tell," I answered pensively. "If you throw in with me in this game, Karen, you may need Dolly's fortitude and then some."

"I've been working on The Hill for 18 years, senator," Karen said. "My first year I was dragged off the street and raped by two Puerto Rican revolutionaries; and the next time the preferred stock of the Capitol wanted a piece of me, my .38 Smith and Wesson left two of them dead in the street in front of a crack house four blocks from the Capitol."

"I don't recall that battle," I said. "Were there no scdreams about tour carrying heat?"

"No one knows who performed that service to humanity," she said, smiling tauntingly, "except you and me."

"Why did you tell me?" I asked.

"Because I like you," she said.

Soon I would learn that Karen's moments of silence always spoke volumes.

"Call in the character assassins and their camera crews," I said. "I'll face them down in front of the elevators."

"I'll tell Midge," she said.

"Midge doesn't work here anymore," I said. "Until further notice you're the ramrod."

Karen exhibited that strange smile once more and returned to her office.

*****

WHERE IS CONNIE?

AND WHY IS MY WIFE

PROFESSING IGNORANCE OF DEMEANING

TEXTS AND HER DIVORCE PETITION?

More incredibly debilitating news hit my already teetering domain in the form of an e-mail query from my brother-in-law in Dallas. My favorite relatives live in Texas.

E-mail: Sorry to bother you Stew. Know you are busier than one-arm paper hanger. But do you know where my wife is? She left here six weeks ago with Morgan. Need to know when she will be home. The kids are demanding I make plans for spring vacation. Connie is always involved in that. Thanks, Ben.

Now, what the hell! Am I living in a time warp? My sister, Connie, has been an assistant superintendent of something or the other in government schools the past 10 years. She can't be flitting around the world with Morgan.

It did occur to me, however, that my sister, holding an MBA in accounting, had worked at the Treasury Department before moving to the Education Department.

How could Connie have been with Morgan the past six weeks? Connie would never abandon her job. She worked too hard to get her PhD. No! My sister would never abandon her kids! Would she?

So, I e-mailed my wife. I had not planned to contact her after receiving the copy of her divorce petition; but the stink was becoming to suffocating.

E-mail: No intention of disturbing you. But Ben is inquiring about Connie. He thinks she's with you. If she is with you, many legitimate questions need answers. Please contact Ben. (Signed) Sen. Stewart Bancroft.

E-mail: What's with cold shoulder to your loving wife? (Signed) Morgan Bancroft, BA, MA, PhD.

E-mail: Difficult to warm up to a divorce petition. Never have enjoyed being called filthy rat scum. What about Connie? (Signed) Sen. Stewart Bancroft.

I received no return e-mail.

*****

SENATOR BANCROFT?

CAN YOU EXPLAIN WHY

YOUR WIFE IS HAVING SEX

WITH A NOTORIOUS LOBBYIST?

Well, Mr. Chairman, I suppose she's having sex with Mr. Vuvuco and at least five dozen other venture capital managers for one or all of three reasons. Get your pen and pad ready to make notes.

Number One: Maybe having sex with a 48 year-old vice president of commercial orgasms who sports an elitist's MBA and PhD makes them a conversation piece at Foggy Bottom parties.

Number Two: Maybe $20,000-a-weekend pussy tastes better than two-hundred- a-half-hour in Nevada.

Number Three: Maybe they hope to get next to her veteran senator husband.

Don't forget the obiter dictum, Mr. Chairman. All five dozen of her lovers could have 14-inch phalluses. Then, too, she could be bartering to use their lobby lists of the scumbag senators who can be bribed. Finally, I would speculate that they probably know a good thing when they smell it and pay for use of her three holes.

Mr. Chairman, will my testimony be entered into the committee's record?

"Senator Bancroft! I am warning you that you will be held in contempt if you continue to display a frivolous attitude," The Chairman muttered. "Do you know that we can expel you from the Senate?

"For what, Mr. Chairman?" I asked, making no effort to disguise my smirk. "Will I be expelled because I wrecked the plan to steal tens of millions under the guise of relief for Somalia? Maybe it's because I like the president."

"Senator, the senate most assuredly will expel members who seduce their interns, especially when you have sex with a juvenile in your senate office," The Chairman sneered. "How about that as a reason for expelling you from this august body?"

"Mr. Chairman, I detect that your zeal for expelling me from this august body exceeds the cocked up charge of statutory rape," I said. "How much will you take from the Somalia scam?"

Increasing the decibels to make certain the newsies heard me, I ticked off half a dozen of the roost rulers as rumored participants in a few as yet undocumented money market orgies. Of course, when I began naming luminary news anchors, the newsies began to hoot and howl.

As they say, pandemonium ruled the day. I was pleased as I strode out of the conference room nodding courteously to the overflow crowd blocking the hallway. I expected to be arrested.

Cameras were thrust into my face. There's nothing more intimidating than a six-foot-five woman shouldering a 30 pound television camera. Her "stand-up-talent" journalist screamed her question above the din.

"Senator Bancroft? Is your wife having sex with financier gangsters and a lobbyist of questionable integrity?" she asked, reading from a clipboard until she dropped her glasses and stepped on them. I answered her question as she crawled about the floor collecting the pieces of her glasses.

"My wife is fucking Mr. Axtel Vuvucu, young lady," I said with my best scorn dripping grin. "Now the difference between having sex and fucking lies in the fact that any animal can have sex; but only human types with Harvard or Wharton or Cal Berkeley MBA's and PhD's can perform the mindless fuck. To achieve the apex of the mindless fuck you must have a morbid capacity for playing with your pussy, giving head or excelling at the hand job."

"What!" the newsie croaked.

"After all, according Women's Studies 101, 'It's just sex' and my wife 'owns her body,'" I said. "Please correct my quote if failed to get it right."

"Are you going to divorce your wife?" another newsy asked contemptuously.

"Oh, Christ no!" I answered, hooting more than laughing. "Only a moron would throw a cash cow like my wife to the curb."

"Then you are still in love with your wife!" the newsy intoned as if discussing Plato's philosophy of truth.

"To be sure, I'm in love with Morgan," I answered, hoping my attempt to make my eyes sparkle was succeeding. "But sadly I can never make love to her again."

"Can you explain that senator?" the news persisted.

"Yes! It's rather simple," I said, pursing my lips as if concentrating. "I don't have $20,000 for a weekend."

"Senator, your sick jokes aside, please clarify your statement that you love your wife, yet you call her a whore," the newsie holding her crushed glasses said. "Will you give a serious answer?"

You must understand that when a woman like my wife is in town, there's a line so long the cops must maintain traffic control. And I have never stood in line for sloppies in my life."

"Did you have sex with the underage intern?" someone shouted. "And if you deny that you did so, how can you prove it?"

"Good question!" I said. "All of these questions will be answered if the ethics committee recommends I be expelled from the senate; and I will provide irrefutable evidence of my innocence."

Once more pandemonium reigned. But I would swear I hear chaos singing soprano. I saw Karen, my new chief-of-staff, hovering on the fringe of the sexless orgy of idiots that newsies always create.

"We have a date with Axtel Vuvucu at the Lafoon Pub," Karen shouted. "That's at the corner of sociopath Ave. and Pathology Street across from the Mayflower Hotel."

Several newsies determinedly scribbled that into their notes.

Chairman Jabbar scheduled my next appearance for 10 a.m. Tuesday. He commanded me to produce my exculpatory evidence. Apparently, he had decided that I was only posturing.

Perhaps we would show our cards. Is that a suitable metaphor for the 21st Century?

*****

MEDIEVAL DUELING AT THE LAFOON PUB

Newsies congregated in front of the Lafoon Pub. Why were they such a bloody miserable lot?

Karen led the way from the taxi into the dark watering hole decorated in green, the Pakistani owner apparently favoring an Irish clientele.

As I had anticipated, we were being ambushed. Accompanying Vuvucu were my wife and sister in addition to an assortment of swarthy ethnicities and nationalities. Ironies of all ironies, I found it possible to identify Arab Stud on sight. Listening to the tapes from their jet brothel had provided very reliable impressions and perceptions. I would have smelled Oxford as he claimed his space.

My sister, Connie, led us to a small dining room at the rear of the bar where Morgan and Vuvucu were drinking Scotch. We declined Connie's invitation to be seated.

"Your husband and children have called asking if I could help them find you, Connie," I said without a greeting. "And, dear wife, I got your petition for dissolution of the marriage."

"They misspelled Bancroft," Karen interjected.

"Senator, you are a smart and reasonable man," Vuvucu said, rising as if to take command. "And we are reasonable people."

THEY ONLY PLOTTED TO STEAL $100 MILLION

All they wanted was my vote to pass the Somali relief bill authorizing $100 million in additional foreign aid to a part of the world in which only rape surpassed famine tuberculosis. Also, as chairman I could either move the bill to the Senate floor where it would undoubtedly become law or I could bury it.

"No Somalia aid bill will get past my committee with more than a $20 million appropriation," I said, "and an acceptable plan for sufficient American security forces to deliver the shipment to the appropriate recipients."

"We don't want to destroy you, Stew," my wife added as if on cue, "and I do love you with all my being."

"Stew!" Connie said as if singing a third pitch. "Be sensible! You're not even a sponsor of the Somali bill or the request for authorization, and you have no administrative responsibility; so why can't you simply vote 'yes' and send it to the majority leader with a pass recommendation?"

"Because Stew's not a thief and doesn't sleep with thieves," Karen interrupted.

"Who's this?" my wife demanded, appraising Karen.

I ignored her. My attention was focused on Vuvucu.

"I'm a post modern Platonist clumsily fanning the obstinate mist seeking absolute truth," I said. "You are a reductionist democrat who dissolves to nothingness once you defecate in the streets of gold and gangbang an innocent into a quivering mash of bloody cum enriched psychoses."

"Huh!" belched from a blunted D.C. bag man. Vuvucu posed successfully as the ultimate utility thug

Astounding myself with that flake of obdurate obscurantism, I stood intellectually nude like all men led to believe that Ultimate Truth must exist.

"God is Love," I heard myself say. "Love is truth and from that come justice."

Momentarily speechless, my wife's utilitarian orgasm custodian whipped a hysteria tinged glance toward my wife. My wife's total facial structure shrank and pruned as she conferred with my sister in whispered gasps.

Nodding her agreement with my wife's assessment, my sister became more erect as she weighed her words. Connie opened her mouth but abruptly ceased and turned back to my wife. Morgan apparently clarified the issue, and Connie began.

"Stewart, we have always been closer than mere brother and sister," Connie began nervously. "Do you trust me?"

I nodded my affirmation. But my purposeful mischievous smile, a thin twitching at the corner of my lips, assuredly flummoxed her.

"Stewart? You owe me," she said, her voice gaining confidence. "I'm calling in your IOU."

Raising my brow and pursing my lips conveyed both my question and my skepticism. Connie had always attempted to manipulate me, and she could be ruthless.

"I appreciated your lending me the tuition for the first year of law school, Sis," I said seriously. "But I've paid you back ten times over."

"You know what I'm talking about, little brother," my sister smirked. "How would you like that bit of erotica on the CNN news every hour on the hour?"

"Do you still have video?" I asked, more from curiosity than anything else. "Now that was a Commencement Event!"

"Cut to the bloody chase!" Vuvucu said, reduced to two parts anger and one part fear. "We must have your vote, so name your price."

My wife assumed command. I knew she would.

"You're blowing smoke, Stewart," Morgan said. "Someone has your senatorial balls locked in a vise called statutory rape; and I'm holding the key that will unlock that curse."

Now Morgan had narrowed her eyes and smiled her patented mirthless promise of her rattler's sting. Behind my challenging trio, Arab Stud had begun moving stealthily toward the exit.

"I think your wife just confessed, Senator," Karen said. "Your wife sent Debra to our office to put you in the frame."

Khan, Morgan's Young Arab Stud, froze when my best damnation voice cut through the gloom. As if reciting a passage from a dull poem, I scolded Arab Stud, informing him that he no longer had the option to separate from the miseries. Strangely enough he halted sine die, amazingly intimidated though I wielded no weapon or made no chilling threat.

"We must have that Somali Aid bill, Stewart," my wife said. "You have no bargaining chips."

Either I do as they commanded or go to jail on their cobbled accusation of having sexual congress with a minor. Morgan had discarded the sweetness and light.

They all nodded their agreement when my wife proceeded to say that all charges miraculously would deconstruct. Now was the time for me to freeze their blood with my diabolical plan.

"Listen up! I'll say this one time!" I responded with a bitter growl. "Killing me is your only hope of passing your Somali Aid bill."

Vuvucu 's face contorted in surprise. Most of the lesser evils gasped or grinned with a glint of uncertainty.

"Too risky," my wife said thoughtfully. "It could be done, but why would I take that risk when my statutory rape scheme is already in place and moving forward."

DUELS?

PREPOSTERIOUS! INSANITY!

"We'll duel," I said, straining to make my voice dramatic.

"Duel!" they echoed collectively in surprise.

If you kill me, my replacement as chairman will be the woman who wrote the Somali Aid bill," I said, surprising myself with sincere though bogus reasoning. "And, obviously she will vote 'Yes.'"

Duel? They laughed spontaneously until their eyes rested on my face. I was as serious as rain in West Texas.

"He's serious!" Young Arab Stud said. "Interesting! But how do you propose to implement such an idiotic scheme?"

"On this card," Karen said, "I have given you the longitude and latitude of a landing strip at Nadinu Station on the Ofooku River in the densest jungle of Nigeria. One week from today you will charter a plane at Abuja, and we will have everything you need ready for our End Game Tournament."

"I will sign an affidavit that I arranged the event and fired the first shot," I said. "With all eight of you armed and aligned only 30 feet away, one of you will put that steel ball in my heart or brain."

"Duel!" Vuvucu repeated with growing enthusiasm.

"Just a damned minute," my sister said. "You fire first?"

"If you fire first," my wife said analytically, "one of us could get killed."

"True!" I responded pleasantly. "But that makes your self defense claim more credible for the Nigerian or Cameroon police."

Vuvucu calculated the probabilities.

"No predictability here," my wife said, ever the finance genius. "He would have the power to predetermine who to shoot."