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The sad truth was nothing. I’m just a librarian at a small alternative school in New York, in charge of getting things shelved exactly right. I didn’t even have a fancy title like “VP of Acquisitions” or “Assistant VP of Circulation.” I was just plain old staff.
Even more to the point, I moonlighted as a feature dancer at the Pink Flamingo, which again, isn’t exactly the cream of the crop when it comes to gentlemen’s clubs. So it was kind of like pairing Zeus with a lowly serf from Ancient Greece. We couldn’t even be compared. Thomas Burke was the king of the heavens, whereas I was just a nobody, nameless and faceless
making my way among the crowd.
And yet, our encounter had been amazing. We’d made love yes, but there was also talk that was at once humorous and witty.
“So what’s up with your stage name?” he’d asked, relaxing in the aftermath of our physical session. A smile quirked those lips as he took another sip of whiskey. “Don’t most girls have stage names like Candy and Tigresse?”
I blushed a little.
“Yeah, Pearl was kind of a last-minute thing,” I admitted. “I didn’t know what to say when they asked me my stage name, so I blurted out pearl because I was wearing a pearl bracelet. It’s lame, I know,” came my blush.
But the Commander-in-Chief didn’t think it was dumb. He merely stroked my boobie again, watching with satisfaction as the nipple pebbled.
“Pearl’s a beautiful name,” he growled in my ear as I sat in his lap. “But what’s with your last name? Evanescence? That’s damn hard to spell and wouldn’t something short and sweet be the way to go?”
This one was harder to explain.
“It would, but I wanted something to set me apart. So many girls have names like Nikki Sexxx or Jane May to keep things easy. I wanted something different, that no one would copy. Not that anyone would copy me,” came my hurried words. “But I thought that “Evanescence” was nice.”
He nodded thoughtfully, just thinking.
“Is there a reason for Evanescence in particular?” he asked. “I mean, are you expecting something to disappear?”
I swallowed before shooting him a weak smile.
“I guess I just didn’t want to fade,” was my quiet admission. “Evanescence means something that’s soon going to vanish, fade, or disappear, and I didn’t want that to be me. So I chose this as my last name.”
He grinned at me.
“I love human nature because sweetheart, you actually want the opposite meaning,” he drawled. “Something like Pearl Forever or Pearl Concrete.”
“Oh you,” I squealed, swatting him lightly with a small palm. “But yes, I guess so. I want to have some staying power, you know? I mean, I never meant to be a dancer. I never meant to take off my clothes in front of men. It just so happened that I was desperate for money to pay my rent, and one thing led to another. And pretty soon, I was the feature act on Tuesday nights, and now … well, you know how it turned out.”
The President was silent for a moment, holding my curvy form close as we relaxed on the couch.
“Yeah, I get it,” he growled finally. “Believe it or not, it was never my dream to be president either. It was something that I decided to do on a whim. You know my real job is my real estate empire, and I kind of decided to run just to throw cake in the establishment’s face.”
I nodded.
“Yes, I heard,” were my quiet words. “Do you regret it? I mean, who would regret being President?” was my quick qualifier. But I couldn’t resist, because this was a question that had piqued the nation’s curiosity. “But do you, sir?” I asked with searching eyes. “Do you regret becoming President?”
And he was quiet for a moment because it’s a tough question to answer. On the one hand, he held all the power in the world. Every door was open to him, from secret meetings in the Seychelles to above-board conferences with the Pope. But the question I’d asked was different. Did he enjoy it? Was this what he anticipated? And even more important, did he wish things had turned out differently?
Thomas sighed, eyes off in the distance.
“I’m not sure, pretty girl,” was his slow answer. “You know, I never expected to win,” he said with a wry grin. “I figured it was publicity for my real estate empire, a way to get my name into the national consciousness without too much advertising. But things just caught steam. I hit a vein with the American electorate, and a lot of people liked what I was saying. So one thing led to another, and believe you me, sweetheart, I was just as surprised as anyone when they declared the winner on election night.”
I scrunched my brow at him.
“Yeah, it was a little strange, wasn’t it?” I asked quietly. “Every poll had you down by at least twenty points, but I remember looking up the results at around eleven fifty-five and you were ahead. So you weren’t expecting that, either?”
His expression was faraway, but then he turned to look at me, blue eyes filled with something unreadable.
“Nope, I believed the polls too. My win was a shock because who knew that the papers and the supposed “experts” could be so far off? If you ask me, there are a lot of folks in that business who deserve to lose their jobs. But hey, what happened is what happened, and I, more than anyone else, believe in the United States. I want to make this nation great once more, and to raise us up from the mire that’s trapped us underneath layers of discord.”
He lost me a little there, but I smiled again.
