Party Lines (7 page)

“Yes,
without even looking at her,” Lindsay replied. “Really, Ron, are you so
partisan that you can’t even see how phony he is?”

“Bradford
Hopkins is a dedicated public servant, a leader
..
”

“
..and
he’s sweating like a pig,” said Lindsay, her eyes now
on the podium.

And
she was correct. The questioning had begun without either noticing, but now
they grew silent as members of the audience put questions to both Faircloth and
Hopkins about issues important to women.

Clara
fielded questions on health care, childcare and equal pay with confidence and
candor, but Hopkins seemed uncomfortable and frequently tugged at his collar or
mopped his brow.

“Whose
cockamamie decision was it to put him in a dark suit?” Lindsay asked, shaking
her head.

“Whose
do you think?” Ron asked.

“Yours?”
She looked over and raised an eyebrow.

Ron
shook his head. “Why are you doing this?” he asked.

“Doing
what?” The candidates were discussing their approaches to health care now, and
Lindsay answered Ron as one who has better things to pay attention to.

“Being
a bitch.”

She
turned on him, her expression hurt and angry. “Oh, after revealing my feelings
to you I guess I’m supposed to be some little demure pushover, and if I’m not
then I’m suddenly a bitch?”

“No,”
he said, looking around to make sure no one was listening in. “You’re supposed
to be the same astute, assertive manager and not overcompensate for the guilt
of your revelations by becoming some underhanded operative.”

“Like
you?” she asked.

They
stared at one another now in silence.

“You
need to see me after the debate,” he said. “Tonight.”

“Why
should I?” she asked, aware now that she was testing him – had been
testing him.

“I
think you know,” he said. “I’ll send a car for you at eight.”

She
considered telling him she would do no such thing, he had no right to order her
to meet him at a certain time without letting her at first check her schedule.
But the words did not come, and even if they did it would not have mattered
since he had walked away.

Lindsay
felt her face flush with warmth. Was he correct? Was she overcompensating? Or
was she – as she suspected – pushing the limits to see whether he
would enforce them. If that was the case, she’d obviously pushed too far.

***

“I
should never have agreed to do that damn forum.” Bradford Hopkins could not get
his tie off fast enough once he and Ron had gotten in the cab. “That whole
audience was in her pocket the entire time. And it didn’t help that I was sweating
like a pig. And what was up with that mouthy little bitch managing Clara’s
campaign, taking a dig at me like that. Little brat. The first thing I’m going
to do when we win is laugh right in her face.”

Ron
looked out the window so his candidate wouldn’t see his irritated expression.
Hopkins was right; Lindsay had indeed been bratty. But he felt a surge of
defensiveness at Hopkins’ words for the woman he’d spend so much time with the
night before. It was one thing for him to suggest she was being bitchy; it was
quite another to have Hopkins call her a bitch. It suddenly occurred to him
that Lindsay had been right. His candidate was a phony, and for the first time
he was wondering if the voters weren’t seeing through him.

“She
was just trying to unnerve you,” Sharp said dismissively.

“Well
pardon me if that assessment doesn’t make me feel better,” Hopkins said. “Especially
since it had the desired effect. I don’t like her, Ron. I don’t like her at
all. In fact, I’m beginning to think that she’s too effective a weapon for
Clara to have gotten her hands on. I don’t know where this Lindsay Martin came
from or what her game is, but something’s going to have to be done about her.”

“What
do you mean?”
Sharp felt a wave of apprehension.

“I
mean I want you to put some time into finding some dirt on that little bitch,”
Hopkins said, ignoring his campaign manager’s frown. “I don’t care what it is -
past affairs, embarrassing photographs, traffic tickets – anything.”

Ron
shook his head. “I’m pretty sure Clara vetted her before she hired her,” he
said. “Besides, if you haven’t noticed, I have a campaign to run.”

Hopkins
scoffed. “Instead of looking at this as a campaign to run you need to be
looking at this as an election to win. Now, Clara’s got an ace in the hole with
that girl and I’m sick and tired of her.”

Now
it was Sharp’s turn to feel indignant. “Now listen, Bradford. You need to get a
grip. Lindsay Martin may have gotten under your skin, but she was just doing
her job. If I’d done the same thing to Clara you’d be patting me on the back
for it and you know it.”

“Don’t
you dare take that tone with me.” Hopkins was red-faced and Ron Sharp found
himself taken aback by the man’s demeanor. “You’re forgetting who the boss is
here. What the hell, Ron? You like this girl or something?”

“Don’t
be ridiculous,” Ron said. “I just think you need to calm down.”

“Driver,
pull over. I’ll get out here.” Hopkins sat forward in his seat as the car
slowed in front of the exclusive social club to which he belonged. “Now I’m
going to take your advice and go have a drink. I’ll see you in the morning, and
when I do I expect you to have some dirt Clara’s manager. It’ll get her out of
the way and take some of the steam out of her the Faircloth campaign.”

He
hefted himself out of the car and Ron Sharp sat there, stunned, as he watched
him go. Things were getting more complicated by the moment, and for the first
time in his life the man who usually had all the answers didn’t know quite what
to do.

***

The
car arrived promptly at eight. Lindsay had no idea where Ron intended to take
her or what she should wear, so she chose a simple black dress and low heels.
She wore her hair pulled back in a mother-of-pearl clasp and finished the
outfit off with a light wrap and small clutch handbag.

The
driver said nothing to her beyond a basic greeting, and she watched the city
lights go by as he car winded its way through the city streets before finally
ending up at the waterfront Marriot Hotel.

Lindsay
wasn’t sure what to make of his taking her to a hotel, but decided that given
their high profiles he was simply being discreet.

At
the desk was a key to a room registered under her name.

“Excuse
me,” said the clerk. “Are you Lindsay Martin?”

Lindsay’s
first instinct was to say ‘no’ but she realized she couldn’t do that.

“Yes,”
she said.

“Ohmigosh.
I thought so.” The girl beamed at her. “I always watch the debates; the
elections are so exciting this year what with old Ironsides finally leaving
office.”

Lindsay
grinned. Ironsides was the nickname of the incumbent center Russell Tucker, who
strongly resembled the fictional attorney in the show by the same name.

“Well
be sure to get out and vote,” Lindsay said.

“What
are you doing here?” the girl asked.

“Claire,
we don’t ask our guests personal questions.” A portly night manager walked
over.

“Sorry,
Ms. Martin,” she said. “She’s new.”

“No
problem,” said Lindsay, taking the key and walking away. But the incident
bothered her because it reminded her of the risk she was taking by even coming
to the hotel on Sharp’s orders. It would be easy to walk away now, but her feet
kept taking her closer to the elevator and she knew her desire to see him was
stronger than her own willpower.

The
room was large and overlooked the twinkling lights of the historic riverfront.
Lindsay didn’t have much time to take them in before Ron showed up at the door.
The fell into one another’s arms immediately, and Ron held her after they
kissed, wondering how he could tell her what Hopkins had asked of him without
scaring her away. There seemed to be no good way to do it, and he was worried
that she might see it as his efforts to get her to back off.

But first things first.

“You
know why we’re here,” he said.

Lindsay
looked down, unsure of how to answer.

“You
didn’t have to overcompensate today,” he said. “Even if you thought Hopkins
deserved that barb today, it was really out of character for you to do that.”

Lindsay
nodded.

“So
you want to tell me why you did it?”

Lindsay
worried her lip with her teeth as she struggled to find an answer. “Because I
wanted you to still see me as a worthy opponent,” she said.

“I
saw you as a worthy opponent before,” he said. “Nothing’s changed.”

“Perhaps
also because I was…” She stopped, unable to find the words.

“Because…” he urged.
You can say it. I want you to say it.

“Because
I was testing you,” she said. “Because I wanted to know if you were really the
way you said you
are
.”

He
tipped his face up to her. “Let me show you,” he said.

Lindsay’s
legs were shaky as he led her to the sofa for what she knew would be her first
real disciplinary spanking. They both knew she had earned it. The performance
she’d given today was just the type of game-playing neither of them wanted to
deal with.

He
pulled her over his lap and ran his hand across her dress-covered bottom before
delivering two hard slaps, one to each cheek. Lindsay responded to each with a
little cry, and Ron watched her reaction as he gave her two more, even harder.
He wanted to gauge just what Lindsay was able to take.

He
found one of her limits when he pulled up the hem of her dress.

“No!”
she cried, but he ignored her and clutched the hand she put back to cover
herself. She was wearing little polka-dot bikini panties with tiny bows at the
sides. The triangle of fabric in the back afforded little protection, leaving
more than half her shapely bottom exposed. The skin was already pink from the
blows he’d previously landed, and he knew she already thought she’d been
spanked. But she had not. Not yet.

Raising
his hand, he brought it down hard on her bottom, eliciting a real cry of pain.

“You
have nothing to prove to me or to yourself,” he said. SMACK! SMACK!

“Owww!”
she cried out. “Stop. It hurts. I won’t do it again.”

“No
you won’t,” Ron said. “You have no need for self-doubt, no need to
overcompensate. Just because you are a submissive woman does not mean you have
to balance it out by becoming someone you don’t even like.”

He
began to spank her in earnest now and Lindsay felt herself begin to panic. This
hurt. It really, really hurt and she could hear
herself
begging him to stop, could feel her legs kicking hard.

She
heard a ‘thump’ as one of her pumps flew off her foot and hit a nearby table,
but Ron ignored this and continued to spank, now throwing a leg across hers to
more effectively restrain her.

The
tears were flowing now and Lindsay let them fall, feeling the guilt and angst
draining away from her. She never let herself cry, not really cry as she was
crying now. There were times when she wanted to, but the tears would not come.
Now she feared they would not stop as she wriggled her bottom from side to side
in an effort to escape Ron Sharp’s rapidly descending hand.

But
her struggles were futile and she knew he was sending her the message that the
punishment would be over when he decided. She was too exhausted to fight much
now and went limp over his lap. But she continued to cry, even as he picked her
up in his arms and laid her on the bed.

Lindsay
wondered in the back of her mind if he
were
going to
seduce her now, but he did not. Instead he just
laid
down beside her and held her, stroking her hair and telling her how everything
as going to be OK.

“Where
were you when I was in college?” she asked finally when she’d managed to
regulate her breathing.

“In
college?” he asked.

“Yeah,”
she said. “I could have used a firm hand then.”

“You
were in touch with your feelings that early?” he asked.

“Not
really,” she replied. “I just needed some guidance. I was a student activist
and one night we were all out drinking and did something we shouldn’t have
done.”

“You
don’t have to tell me,” Ron said, suddenly feeling a panic of his own. Lindsay
was about to offer up some personal information, he knew, that could damage her
if it got out.

“I
want to,” she said. “We torched the offices of Tri-County Paper after they were
awarded a logging contract. It was stupid and dangerous.”

Ron
was shocked. “You’re kidding,” he said,
then
paused. “Does
Clara know?”