Millennium - 62. Chapter 62

February 15, 2000

The phone next to the bed was ringing, and even though it was turned down, it sounded as if there was a three-alarm fire in the house. I groaned loudly, rolled onto my stomach, grabbed a pillow and put it over my head to block out the noise. I heard Robbie answer it softly. He was obviously only slightly less hung over than I was. I felt his hand slide up the inside of my leg, his fingers tracing my testicles on their way to my ass. Even as hung over as I was, that made me giggle.

“Phone call for you. It’s Wade.”

I took the phone from him reluctantly. “Wade?” I asked unnecessarily as I answered the phone. I looked at the clock and saw that it was only 8:02am.

“I’m sorry to bother you so early,” his crisp voice said. “The hearings have been moved up to tomorrow.”

“Moved up? Why?” They weren’t supposed to be until next week.

“They were moved up per my father’s request,” he said. “Something is going on, and whatever it is, it isn’t good. They’re doing this so we won’t be there.”

“That way they won’t have to look us in the eye when they vote to give the contract exclusively to Omega,” I said bitterly.

“That’s my guess,” Wade said. I felt sorry for him, stuck in the middle like this. I knew his heart and his loyalty were with us, but I knew he still had to feel conflicted about what his parents were doing. “If we go out today, and come back tomorrow night, I can do it.”

“It won’t interfere with your classes?” I asked.

“I’ve got it handled,” he said. I could tell he was slightly irritated at my insinuation that he might not have thought that through.

“Of course you have,” I said soothingly. “Well, we’re flying Robbie’s cousins back to Claremont, so you can hitch a ride and we’ll just go on to DC. I think they’re supposed to leave around 10am.”

“That’s the plan. I’m already downstairs eating breakfast with them. The only one who’s not up is you,” he teased. He must have used his cell phone to call me from downstairs.

“Fine,” I said grumpily and hung up the phone. I rolled onto my side to look at Robbie as I filled him in. “They moved the hearings up to tomorrow. I have to go to DC today, and come back tomorrow night.”

“I’ll go with you,” he said.

I smiled at him. “Part of me wants to tell you that you don’t have to, that you can stay here, but I really want to be with you, so I’m going to tell that part to shut the fuck up.”

He snaughed and hopped out of bed, showing off his magnificent naked body. He held out his hand and pulled my lazy ass out of bed and into the shower, where we made love and cleaned up at the same time. It seemed like a whirlwind, with me frantically packing for tomorrow and then rushing to get downstairs. Robbie didn’t have formal meetings, so he just threw a few things in a bag and was downstairs well before I was. They were all waiting for me, so all I could do was grab a croissant on the way out the door. That was a mistake.

The ride to the airport was excruciating. My stomach was already upset, and adding the croissant hadn’t helped at all. I fought the nausea gamely, trying to avoid puking, but I’d made sure to sit next to the window just in case. I knew I was going to throw up, but I was desperately trying to make it to the airport first. “You look like shit,” Gathan said to me, and with that, I lost my battle. I barely had time to get the window down and stick my head out before I lost it. I puked, retching and retching, while the people in morning traffic looked at me with curiosity and annoyance at the same time. What kind of idiot pukes out the side of a limo on a Tuesday morning? I finally got my stomach under control and retreated back into the car, closing the window. Everyone else looked at me gratefully, since it was cold and the lowered window had all but frozen them.

“All day yesterday I kept thinking that I should have let you blow me when I had the chance,” Gathan teased. “Now I’m not so sure.”

“You never had a chance,” I told him, being cocky.

“Like you could say no to me,” he joked.

“As cute as you are, and you’re pretty cute, I could say no,” I told him, stroking his ego a bit so he could save face. I gazed at Robbie lovingly and he smiled back.

“Gross. You’re doing that lovey-dovey shit again,” Gathan said, making everyone laugh.

My instinct was to lay a major kiss on Robbie, but after I’d just puked, that probably wouldn’t have been too attractive. Instead, I changed the subject. “So did you all go shopping with Stefan?”

“Yeah,” Zach said without enthusiasm.

“It was a blast!” Ella said, much more excited. “Claire and Stef argued the whole time. It was pretty funny.”

“They would,” I said, chuckling as I pictured them with their fashion debates.

“It took a long time,” Zach said.

“Don’t be an ingrate,” Gathan snapped. “He spent a fortune on clothes for all of us.”

“I’m not an ingrate, it just took a long time,” Zach responded, just as petulantly.

“I understand,” I said, trying to smooth things over. “Will hates going shopping with him for that very reason. I told Stef if he’d make faster decisions, he’d find more willing shopping companions.”

“Well I thought he was awesome,” Ella said, coming to Stef’s defense.

“Mom’s gonna be mad at all the stuff we got,” Zach said. “He even got stuff for us to take back for Zeke, Brent, and Trent.”

“I think your mother understands Stef and his ways. I wouldn’t worry about it,” I told them, hoping that was indeed the case. We got to the airport and hopped out of the limo. I noticed that the driver had a pretty unhappy expression on his face, and when I turned and looked I could see why. My vomit was streaked all over the rear fender of the car. “I’m sorry,” I said, apologizing hastily. Everyone else snickered at me as I handed the driver $100 and told him to have lunch on me.

The flight to Claremont was uneventful. The kids started talking to Wade, asking him about Stanford, about DC, and about all the famous people he knew. Wade was good at that, at making social small talk; it was funny to watch all three of them, even Gathan, look at him with wide-eyed hero worship. I didn’t stay for that discussion. I grabbed Robbie, went back to one of the bedrooms on the plane and passed out.

I was still in a fog when we landed in Claremont. I didn’t fully wake up until we got to Wally’s house. The kids grabbed their new Tumi bags; big bags loaded with lots of stuff, and ran up to see their parents, followed more slowly by Robbie and me.

After greeting them, Clara looked down at the bags. “Those are nice suitcases.”

“Stefan took us shopping,” Zach said sheepishly. “We tried to get him to not buy us stuff, but he was pretty hard to argue with.”

“Stef is impossible to reason with when he’s shopping,” I intervened.

“I’m sure he is,” Clara said with a smile, giving us all a pass this time around. “How was your ceremony?”

“Perfect,” I told her with a broad smile.

“We met Elton John,” Ella said enthusiastically. “He sang at the ceremony.”

“Elton John sang at the ceremony?” Clara asked incredulously.

“He and Stefan are old friends,” I said. The kids said goodbye to us and took their suitcases upstairs. “I’m sorry about that,” I told her.

“It’s quite alright, Brad,” Clara said. “We’re happy, and we’ve been happy, without having a lot of things. I want the kids to understand that the things just aren’t that important.”

“I’m worried that the lure of the stuff will make that more difficult,” I said.

“I think they have their heads on right,” Robbie observed, sounding like a sage. “I think that’s what Clara’s saying, that they can handle it.”

Clara nodded. “I’m glad,” I said, faking agreement and a smile. I couldn’t get Brian out of my mind, or at least what happened to him. It would be horrible if we caused one of these kids to become that twisted and evil. “We do need to get going.” Robbie and I said goodbye and headed back to the airport where Wade had waited, and then we were off to the Capitol, to see what mischief Senator Danfield was plotting.

February 16, 2000

Wade and I sat in the Senate Hearing room, which resembled a courtroom. Robbie had opted to stay at the hotel and get some work done. I felt bad, dragging him around like this, but he was embracing technology and it almost gave him a portable office. With his cell phone, combined with a laptop connected to the internet, it was a palatable second-best to actually being there.

There were quite a few people attending, but we’d gotten passes and reserved seating, so we didn’t have to jockey for position. We sat on one side of the room, Wade and I, while on the other side of the room Alexandra Carmichael sat with an empty seat next to her. She had carefully avoided any chance to talk to me, and pointedly avoided looking at me.

“She only looks at you when you’re not looking at her,” Wade told me in a conspiratorial voice.

“I remind her of her former husband. I’m probably making her horny,” I joked back. We laughed, which seemed indecorous, but I knew it would irritate Alexandra so that made it alright. Our laughter was cut short when the Senators began to file in. I recognized them; I’d met with them as we’d worked this proposal through. The last one in the room was Senator Danfield.

I watched as he scanned the room, and for a second there was an expression of shock on his face when he spotted Wade and me. I watched as Wade locked eyes with him, demanding that he do the right thing this time, that he decide in favor of his son and not the evil bitch from hell. The conflict in the Senator’s face was apparent, but if his smile at Wade was any indicator, he seemed to develop a resolve in our favor. I had relaxed, thinking we might actually come out of this OK, when I saw his eyes flicker over toward Alexandra.

I looked over there and saw that it wasn’t Alexandra he was looking at, it was his wife. Elizabeth Danfield breezed into the room smoothly and gracefully, and was so unobtrusive that the only people who seemed to notice her were her husband, Wade, and me. She walked down to the front and sat in the empty seat next to Alexandra. They gave each other faux kisses on the cheek, and as they did, I saw the utter revulsion on Elizabeth Danfield’s face. I saw Alexandra talking to her, and then saw Elizabeth look over at us. She looked visibly ruffled.

The dynamics after that went fast, but seemed to actually move in slow motion. Wade, his mother, and his father alternately made eye contact with each other. It was as if there was a subliminal power struggle going on, but it was difficult to know who was winning. I watched, fascinated, as they argued with their eyes. And then something extraordinary happened. Elizabeth Danfield looked at me, and seemed genuinely concerned. Her expression was apologetic. What was it about me that seemed to make her protective?

I watched as Senator Danfield leaned over to the senator on his right. They argued for a minute or two, and then the other senator seemed to sigh with both irritation and resignation. Senator Danfield then turned to the senator on his left and had a similar exchange. The two senators whom he had spoken to looked at each other, exchanged a few unintelligible words, and then sat back as the chairman called the meeting to order. As soon as he did, the senator to the right of Wade’s father made a motion to delay the hearing on the Triton/Omega contract issue. He claimed that he wanted an extra week to review the studies on quality control. He made it sound as if they’d just come out, when in fact they’d been published some two months ago. The senator to the left of Wade’s father seconded the motion.

“Senator Danfield,” the chairman said, “You requested that this hearing be held today instead of next week. Do you agree with this motion?”

“Yes, Mr. Chairman,” Senator Danfield said smoothly, good politician that he was. “My colleagues are correct in approaching this decision cautiously and deliberately. We must do nothing to unnecessarily endanger the lives of those who serve us in uniform.” With no objection from Senator Danfield, the motion passed easily, and they’d effectively kicked the ball into next week.

Wade nudged me and gestured over to where his mother and Alexandra were sitting. Alexandra was whispering into Elizabeth’s ear, but even from this distance, it was clear from her demeanor that she was furious. Elizabeth Danfield finally turned to her, whispered something briefly into her ear, and then glided out of the room as smoothly as she had entered it. I noticed that Wade was leaving the room as well; when I looked to my left I was almost surprised that he was gone. He’d moved as stealthily as his mother. I thought about following him out, but opted to stay and keep an eye on the senator instead. The hearing was actually pretty tedious, but I distracted myself by making eye contact with Senator Danfield periodically and watching him look guilty.

About fifteen minutes after he left, Wade seemed to miraculously appear in his seat without causing any movement at all. I decided that was an acquired Washington skill: the ability to move about without being noticed. Anyone who didn’t know Wade would have thought that he was his normal calm and unruffled self, but I did know him, and the high color in his face told me how completely pissed off he was. I saw his father look at him and saw that he picked up on the same thing. The senator squirmed uncomfortably in his seat.

The hearing ended, and as the senators filed out, Senator Danfield paused to talk to an aide, and then followed his colleagues. The aide waited until they were all gone, then hurried over to catch us before we left the hearing chamber.

“Mr. Danfield, Mr. Schluter,” he said, getting our attention.

“Yes?” Wade answered.

“Senator Danfield would like to know if you could meet with him in his office.”

“Now?” I asked.

“If it is convenient,” the aide said.

“Let my father know that we’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Wade said forcefully. The aide blanched a bit, as he was obviously not used to people deferring a request to meet with his boss, but this was an unusual circumstance, so he diligently ran off to alert the Senator.

“You seem upset,” I observed to Wade playfully as soon as we were in the hallway and out of earshot.

“I’d say seriously pissed off would be a better way to put it,” Wade said, grinning at me.

“Well well well,” Alexandra Carmichael said, breaking into our conversation. “Looks like we’ll have to wait a week to see Triton lose its key government contract.”

“You are that confident of victory?” I asked, hitting her with my smile. I’d noticed that I had my father’s smile, so I figured that would fluster her, and it did.

“I never lose,” she said.

“Ne dit jamais jamais,” I said. She narrowed her eyebrows at me and just turned on her heel and stormed off, but in a Washington kind of way, which was more like a gentle stroll.

“My mother refuses to tell me what the deal is. She claims that the seat next to Alexandra was the only empty one in the chamber, and that’s why she sat there.”

“Does she expect you to believe that?” I asked.

“No, she just doesn’t want to talk to me, and she was trying to brush me off. I could read her expression. The only thing she wanted was a drink.”

“I’m betting Alexandra has that effect on a lot of people,” I observed. “Let’s go see your father.” We headed over to the senator’s office. When we got there, they were as polite as could be, which wasn’t surprising since Wade was the boss’s son. We waited for no more than a minute before we were ushered into his office, into the senator’s inner sanctum.

“It’s good to see you both,” the senator lied.

“I’m sure you’re thrilled that we’re here,” Wade said nastily. I saw that hit the senator hard, almost send him reeling. He was working hard to atone for molesting Wade, trying desperately to get some kind of positive relationship with him, and seeing Wade’s contempt must have struck him to the core.

He swallowed hard and turned to me. “Brad, I’d really like to support you on this, but I just can’t. I think you’ll probably get to share the contract, but you won’t get the whole thing.” Wade tried to intervene, but the senator held up his hand, telling him to wait. “You’ve been so generous to our cause, and I thank you for that, but rest assured that every penny you’ve donated will be returned to you.”

“That’s very kind of you, Senator,” I said formally. “I really don’t want the money, I want your support. It’s the right thing to do. Can you at least tell me why you can’t back us on this?”

He shook his head and Wade snapped. “Yes you can. I want to know what the fuck is going on.”

“I just can’t support him,” the senator said, stonewalling.

“What does Alexandra Carmichael have on Mother that’s making her do this?” Wade demanded.

“She doesn’t have anything on your mother,” he said defiantly, but I could tell that wasn’t true, and so could Wade.

“Cut the crap, and quit treating me like I’m some flunky you hired. I know you, I know the system. I’m not an idiot. She’s got something on Mother, and I want to know what it is.”

“I can’t tell you,” he said, admitting that there was, indeed, something there.

“Yes you can. Yes you will,” Wade said forcefully, getting in his face. “You keep telling me that you love me, that you want me to forgive you, but as soon as it gets tough and you have to be honest with me, you hide under a rock.”

“That’s not fair, Wade,” the senator said, almost pleaded. “This is politics. It’s not personal.”

Wade went from pissed off to furious, and that alarmed both me and the Senator. It was fascinating that a furious Wade was much calmer and deliberate than a pissed off Wade. “You’re wrong. It’s very personal. This woman is holding something over Mother’s head, and since you always do what she tells you to do, that means it impacts all of us. So let me spell it out for you. That makes this a family issue, not a political issue, and if I leave this room without knowing what’s going on, I leave it as your most bitter enemy.”

That really floored the senator. I wanted to intervene, to point out that money and contracts weren’t worth ruining a family over, but quite frankly, I was a little afraid of Wade at that point too. The senator walked over to his window and looked out, trying to let the tension ebb at least slightly, but when he turned back and saw Wade, it seemed to dawn on him that he was going to have to tell Wade, or lose him. “Can we speak in private?” he asked me.

“Certainly,” I said automatically as I got up to leave.

“No,” Wade said. “This involves Brad too. I trust him.” The senator seemed to balk at that. “He has a copy of the tape.”

“He does?” the senator asked, truly terrified now. He was referring to the video tape Matt had accidentally made, the one showing the senator forcing Wade to let him fuck him.

“He’s had it the whole while, and the fact that you didn’t know that, and that he’s never even so much as hinted that he has it, that he never even thought of threatening you with it, should tell you that you can trust him.”

I stood up, determined to end this confrontation one way or the other. “Senator, if you want me to leave, I will, but I won’t betray your confidence. I give you my word.”

He looked at me and digested that, all that was in front of him, and sighed. “Your word is more than good enough,” he said, making the best of a bad situation. He motioned us both to sit down. “These are skeletons that have been buried in our closet for a while, so you’ll understand why I’m so reluctant to bring them into the open.”

“What skeletons?” Wade demanded, his patience exhausted.

“Your mother had an affair, and Alexandra has proof of it,” the Senator said sadly.

“People in this town have affairs all the time. If this was just a simple affair, and she exposed Mother, you could handle the fallout the normal way,” Wade said.

“Not this one,” the Senator said. He got up and went over to his safe and began dialing numbers. I wondered what kind of affair would be so debilitating, what could it be that would give Alexandra so much leverage. Did she sleep with an underaged man, a boy? Or maybe she slept with a woman, or a girl? He pulled out an 8.5 X 11 envelope and took out some pictures, then handed them to Wade.

Wade stared at the pictures and gasped. It was all I could do, I had to exert every ounce of control that I had, to avoid looking over and staring at them. Wade must have sensed that, as he handed me the first one. Then it was my turn to gasp.

The pictures were very clear, but they had obviously aged, which indicated that Alexandra Carmichael had been using them to blackmail the Senator for quite some time. Mrs. Danfield was dressed up in a southern belle costume that looked like it came right off the set of “Gone With the Wind.” It had hoops and everything. She was holding a fan and acting coquettishly. The other person in the scene was a big black man, dressed up in ragged clothes, dressed up like he was a slave. I looked up at the senator, who just sat there, defeated.

Wade handed me the next picture and the next, enough of them to play out the scene. First the big black guy picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder, then he dropped her onto the bed. He ripped off his clothes, then knelt over her, forcing her to suck his big cock, and man was it big. I almost smiled when I noted that it didn’t seem as big as mine, but it was still big. He forced her to blow him, then he pulled her clothes off and went down on her, eating her pussy. She stretched out her arms, held onto the metal headboard with both hands, and let herself enjoy him. Then he mounted her, driving into her, and even though they were just photos, the force with which he fucked her came through clearly. As the pictures changed, so did their position. In one picture, he had her on all fours and was doing her doggy style as he slapped her ass.

Wade froze before handing me the next picture, making me wonder what that one was going to show. It showed the big black man lubing up his dick, and the next one showed him plowing that into her ass. Her expression was one of both extreme pain and extreme ecstasy. Wade and I exchanged looks, both of us knowing exactly how that would feel. The final picture showed the big black buck spraying his load all over her.

There was silence in the room until Wade finally broke it. He handed the pictures back to his father. “So Mother was sleeping with Felix. That’s why she made us put up with all of his insolence.” Felix must have been the big black man.

“She has a thing for black men,” the senator observed. “It’s most likely a guilt thing, a remnant from our pasts and the racism that dominated the South.”

“I understand now why you’ve had to compromise to support your wife,” I told him. “I can see how devastating those photos would be if they were leaked.” He nodded to thank me. “We’ll try to survive this vote without you. Any behind the scenes help you can give us would be appreciated.”

“Thank you Brad,” he said, and he was more sincere when he said that than he’d ever been.

“I’d like to ask you one more question, if I may,” I said.

“Go ahead,” he responded. Wade just sat there in a state of shock.

“When your wife looks at me, she almost seems like she wants to help me, to protect me. She seems genuinely concerned about me, more than the other people who are around her, except you and Wade. I barely know her.” He got a small grin. “Why?”

“She lost her virginity to your father,” he said.

“What? When?” I asked.

“It was in 1968. She was 17, and he was a handsome, distinguished naval officer. She had a major crush on him, and seduced him. She even lied about her age, although he knew she was pretty young. Shortly after they had sex and exchanged some pretty steamy love letters, he was killed. I don’t think she ever recovered from that.”

“Did Alexandra know about their affair?” Wade asked.

“It is yet another bone of contention between them. She found some of the love letters in his things,” the senator said. “So you can see that when you show up, my wife sees you as the hero she once knew, while Alexandra sees you as the philandering husband. Then when Alexandra looks at Elizabeth, she is doubly angered.”

“Thank you for telling us, Father,” Wade said, appreciating the dilemma the senator was in.

“You learn not to trust anyone in this town,” he said sadly. Unfortunately, I was finding that out too.