I saw Ellen lean in close to the executive, nearly nuzzling him, whenever she wanted to make a private observation. The two shared quiet laughter, and more than once I thought I saw a furtive gesture in my direction. Were they laughing at my expense? A few minutes later, I noticed that Pharma Douche’s right hand wasn’t visible, and I imagined that at that very moment he was giving Ellen’s thigh a playful squeeze under the table.
The dinner continued.
Mike jovially plied his guests with meat, while Jennifer ensured that everyone’s glasses remained full. Around the table, the conversation among the Texans had, as Mike predicted, turned to football. To my right, Mrs. Pharma Douche continued to radiate glacial coldness. Directly across from me, there was more nuzzling, more shared laughter, more furtive glances and gestures.
In my mind’s eye, I could see Pharma Douche’s fingers as clearly as though the table were made of glass — inching their way up my wife’s thigh, pushing up the hem of her dress, stroking her pussy over her panties. The silk would grow moist beneath his touch as he pressed his index finger between her labia. And then he’d…
Ellen’s giggle caught my attention, and she winked at me.
A wink? What on earth is that supposed to mean? Jesus, snap out of it. What am I thinking?
I took a deep breath and a quaff of beer, trying to clear my head so that I could re-join the conversation around the table. One of the Texans made a wise-crack about the longstanding rivalry between the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins (as they were known at the time), and I responded with the kind of indignant pro-Redskins comment that everyone would have expected. Laughter ensued.
OK, you’ve got this.
But then, the most terrible thought imaginable crossed my mind:
Had Ellen shown Pharma Douche her little brass key and explained to him what it was for? Was that the reason for their shared laughter?
Once this insidious worm took hold of my brain, I was done for.
My imagination spiralled out of control, until utterly insane conspiracy theories seemed perfectly plausible. A half-dozen of these flashed through my mind in the space of ten seconds. Probably the nuttiest: Ellen had obviously bought my chastity cage well in advance of that evening. Perhaps she’d timed our first session purposefully, with the intention of announcing my new sexual submission to the dinner party that very evening, in order to ruin my friendship with the McCleary’s, along with my career at the same time.
OK, get a grip. That’s clearly over-the-top.
But she must have at least told Jennifer about the cage. Right? She shared every other detail of her life with Mike’s wife, so why not this? Right? I knew that Jennifer reacted viscerally to the even slightest hint of marital infidelity, so when Ellen had told her why she’d had to put me in chastity, Jennifer would certainly have supported her. Had she encouraged my wife to start an affair with Pharma Douche as revenge? Or at least to embarrass me by flirting with him publicly in order to teach me a lesson?
This whirlwind of emotion — my confusion, my jealousy, my rage — seemed centered on my cock, or more precisely, on the pitiless piece of steel surrounding it. The chastity cage seemed somehow to restrain not just my ability to get an erection, but to do say or do anything at all. I felt as helpless in the face of my wife’s flirting as I would have been if my whole body, not just my cock, were locked away. I was emasculated in the truest sense of the word — my manhood completely stripped away.
I started to hyperventilate.
“You alright, there, Son?” Mike’s concerned question cut through the fog in my brain. I looked around the table, startled. It seemed as though everyone were staring at me.
Where the fuck am I?
I took a second to reorient myself, then answered, “Sorry, I was thinking about something else. What was the question?”
“I asked,” Pharma Douche said to me smarmily, “what, in your opinion, sets apart the top D.C. lobbying firms from the also-rans?”
What kind of an idiotic question is that? Oh, yeah, the soft-ball kind that every lobbyist longs to hear. The kind that allows him to brag shamelessly, while hinting at sufficient wisdom, as well as access to the inside, to justify his outrageous fees. The kind that I’ve answered at least a thousand times.
The kind I could under no circumstances answer for Pharma Douche at that moment.
“Experience. Our firm has eight-six attorneys on staff with over a thousand years of experience working on Capitol Hill, on every major committee. Over the past two years, we’ve…” And on, and on, and on. I was spewing the most insipid blah, blah, blah imaginable, and the look on Pharma Douche’s face told me that he recognized that fact.
“My husband doesn’t like to talk about himself,” Ellen broke in. “A big part of the firm culture is ‘under-promise, over-deliver.’ But as for what you can expect by working with him — well, let’s just say that we’ve adapted Colson’s Rule as our family motto.”
“What’s Colson’s Rule?” asked Pharma Douche, glad to turn his attention back to Ellen.
“Chuck Colson was Richard Nixon’s chief political strategist. His rule was, ‘If you’ve got ’em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.'”
The CEO let out large laugh. “Now, that’s what I’m talking about,” he said, giving Ellen his most dazzling prep-school smile. “Are you sure you’re not the one running the A-list lobbying firm? Maybe we should hire you instead?”
“Sorry, I’ve been out of the game too long,” Ellen answered humbly. “I wouldn’t be much help.”
“Maybe you should consider getting back in. We could talk about a private arrangement.”
This was the most douchebag move imaginable, offering my wife a job right in front of me. He might as well have pulled down his pants and got his dick out for a measurement contest. Unfortunately, while I would normally have been happy to engage, I wasn’t at that moment in a position to have anyone measure my dick, even if only metaphorically.
“You’d be very lucky to get her,” I said, trying to get back into the conversation. “There’s not a smarter or better-connected attorney anywhere within the beltway. But as I said, your problems are beyond the talents even of my wife. You need the kind of broad experience that a firm like mine can provide.”
“You know, for the past two days a lot of people like you have been telling me what I need. And I’m getting pretty sick of it,” retorted Pharma Douche. “I’m not hiring someone to tell me what I need. I’m hiring someone who will do what I tell them to. I’m the one who makes the decisions, and I don’t need lawyers telling me what to do.”
“Oh yeah? And how’s that working out for you so far?” I asked rhetorically. “I hear Danbury’s very nice this time of year.” OK, hinting at the name of the “Club Fed,” where our nation’s elite white-collar criminals do their time, was, I admit, a bit too much.
“You know, you’d be a hell of a lot better off if you listened to your wife more,” he answered. “If she were running the show, I’d be ready to sign your firm right now. As it stands, not so much.”
“And you’d be a hell of a lot better off if you’d pay a little more attention to your own wife and a little less to other people’s. You might not be so deep in the shit.”
Without waiting for a reply, I stood up and stormed out of the room, leaving a stunned silence in my wake.
The evening had turned dark, but when I walked out onto the deck from the kitchen, a motion-sensor turned on the lights. I preferred the dark. I went to the darkest spot available and looked out into the dark woods. There was a half-empty bottle of Shiner Bock on the railing, but whether it was mine or Mike’s or Pharma Douche’s I couldn’t say.
Who cares? I picked it up took a sip of warm beer.
Through the open kitchen door, I heard the conversation pick up again, but it wasn’t long before it died down again, and I gathered that the guests were on their way out. I later learned that Mr. and Mrs. Pharma Douche had left in a huff almost immediately after my noisy exit. After a while, I heard Ellen and Jennifer come into the kitchen, laughing — about me, I naturally assumed.
“I told you that sumbitch was a piece of work, didn’t I?” Mike’s voice interrupted my brooding. He gently replaced the bottle in my hand with another. “Thought you could use a cold one,” he said.
“Thanks, man,” I said. “Sorry for fucking up your barbecue.”
“There’ll be others. But what the hell’s going on? If you’re still worrying about the appropriations mark-up, don’t. I told you, it’s wired.”
“It’s not that,” I said. “It’s just some stuff at home.”
“With Ellen?” He was surprised. “Hell, she’s about the last person I’d suspect would give her man any trouble.”
“It’s not her. Not exactly.”
“Well, I ain’t gonna ask. The last place you’ll ever find me is between the two of you. But I tell you what, this Congressional session’s gonna be a right sumbitch, so you’re gonna need you’re A-game all the way up to Christmas. And probably a couple of months after. Whatever you got going on, I suggest you get it fixed.”
“Well, at least I don’t have to worry about breaking in a new pharma client,” I said with a bitter laugh.
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Mike replied. “Ellen smoothed things over after you walked out, and she may have even succeeded in pulling your nuts out of the fire,” he said. “She’s a hell of a woman, and you shouldn’t oughta forget that. Sometimes I really envy you.” He clinked his bottle against mine. “To wives,” he said, and he took a pull.
***********
Ellen was silent for the first three minutes of our trip home, as I drove down the half-mile long private road that Mike shared with a half-dozen neighbors. The only shred of dignity that I’d been able to salvage on our way out was remembering to open the car door for her. It was an act of defiant submission.
“Well, that didn’t go as planned,” she finally said, as we turned onto the main road.
“No,” I answered, not wanting to encourage further conversation.
After another couple of minutes, she tried the direct approach. “Do you want to tell me what the hell just happened back there?”
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