“Luke, you don’t have to be a diplomat,” Arjun pressed. “Can we please do this?”
“He’s looking to start trouble,” I finally answered, baffled this had become my decision. “Vote him in.”
Barnes would be eliminated inEndeavor’s first Trial, an uneven wrestling match over a coconut (ah, the days of the island theme). When he hobbled off, he gave me a sad smile. Even though I trusted Arjun’s instincts, I pitied Barnes. It was humiliating to be first out. Besides, it’s not like I thought I’d ever see him again.
5
2015
SEASON 19, EPISODE 8:
“Your Rent Is Due!”
I am, apparently, “a study in contradictions.” That was how my Victorian lit professor once described me as I raced off to football practice freshman year. Fifteen years later, my marriage had bound me to what many saw as the ultimate contradiction: “gay Republican.”
I’m not sure when I threw my hands up, numbly resigning myself to what people insisted Barnes and I symbolized: opportunism, complicity, internalized homophobia, the list went on. Moreover, I never paid much mind to the young men who paraded through Barnes’ office, coming and going with the seasons. These twentysomething gay staffers underscored the point that he—and by proxyI—stood for: “You can be gay and vote any way.” At least that was the slogan he put on his campaign buttons in 2012. I warned him the phrasing (and spacing) might be misconstrued, but nobody was asking my opinion by then.
Barnes called these boys “the ornaments,” decoration for publicity shots around the office; the women he hired were the effective staff. This carousel of clean-cut white boys was so interchangeable that I’d stopped saying “nice to meet you” and instead replied “nice to see you,” perfectly content for them to blend into a nameless fog of jawlines and Vineyard Vines ties.
But now on Jenny’s laptop, one stood out. I watched Elliot Markovich plowing my husband on his office desk, our framed wedding portrait face down in a parody of discretion. Elliot filmed with an iPhone, my husband splayed on his back like a Thanksgiving turkey.
“Say you want this dick, that I’m the only man who fucks you this good,” Elliot grunted, voice shoved low, a trait that no doubt originated while passing as straight on an Andover lacrosse field.
Admittedly I couldn’t remember the last time I’d topped Barnes. He hadn’t suggested it in years. Perhaps because he was experiencing such breathtaking versatility elsewhere.
Had I been so consumed with the kids and the house and the errands that I neglected to realize I’d somehow lost his attention? No, I told myself. We’d had sex regularly, and it was good. Familiar, butgood. The look of satisfaction as he fucked me. He couldn’t fake that.
“Only you, only you fuck me this good,” Barnes whined before the inevitable climax, when stray fluids flew so far they hit the American flag in the corner—a detail no one on the internet missed. The video had already been christened “The Spunk-Spangled Banner.”
At my side, Jenny shook her head. “But why film it? I hate Barnes, but he’s notstupid.”
“Who knows? Clearly I’m no longer an expert in my husband’s kinks.”
She twisted a strand of her raven hair. “… You should get tested.”
“Jesus Christ, Jen,” I groaned, knowing she wasn’t wrong.
The kids were asleep, and Barnes had evacuated to the Willard Hotel before Jenny arrived. Based on the news reports we watched in my bedroom, this specific affair with Elliot had begun in 2009. We eventually landed on E! News, where we found Elliot sporting a tasteful cardigan and a much higher voice. He’d suffered a crisis of conscience when an old pal (another former staffer, this one mercifully anonymous) relayed a similar account. Both were propositioned by Barnes right after he secured them a better job, judiciously never making a move until no longer their employer. “We realized we weren’t the only ones,” Elliot explained tothe coiffed, eager anchor. “I couldn’t keep protecting a hypocrite who’s dismantling the LGBT community… and Senator Appleby’s husband deserved the truth.”
“How selfless,” Jenny sneered behind her cabernet.
“Speaking of his husband, did Senator Appleby ever say what was missing at home?” the anchor lilted, convinced she’d morphed into Diane Sawyer.
“He said his husband didn’t want an open marriage—”
“Was that evendiscussed?” Jenny asked.
“No!” I growled through clenched teeth.
Elliot winced now. “Senator Appleby said he needed outside partners because his husband would only perform the… submissive role.”
The anchor’s poker face vanished, and an old shirtless photo of me fromEndeavormaterialized on-screen. “Looking at the senator’s husband, I doubt anyone expected—”
And that was when I ripped the mounted TV off the wall.
“Honestly, I think that was a healthy response,” Jenny sighed. “I’m not even kidding.”
As the tide of rage washed out and the wave of defeat crashed in, I face-planted on the mattress next to my sister. “Is this what it looks like when your life burns to the ground?”
