Page 316 of Incisive

I’m still laughing when the door swings shut behind her.

CHAPTEREIGHTY-TWO

Secret Service declaresthe threat level has dropped enough I can once again travel to campaign events.

Oh, yay.

Too much sarcasm?

Their declaration comes just in time for me to make an appearance at the national convention where Ciro is officially nominated as the Democratic candidate. It feels damned good holding Leo’s hand where the entire world can see us as we stand on stage with Ciro and Ily, and Ciro’s running mate Ansen Miller, who’s openly gay.

It feels even better knowing the eyes of the world are now on Ciro and hardly anyone’s paying attention to me. Once my term ends I look forward to completely fading into the background while Ciro takes over and runs our country.

Oh, he’ll win the election.

Especially since Colby Richmond, the GOP’s heir-apparent who finished strongest in Iowa and barely squeaked through a contentious and contested Republican National Convention vote to be named their candidate, has a closet full of secrets Casey-Marie revealed to me. The father of five paid for several abortions for his six secret mistresses—while he was married to his wife—and told two other women who decided not to terminate their pregnancies that he wouldn’t give them a penny of child support. That he’d ruin their lives if they ever tried to sue him for paternity.

There’s also video of him at a sex party.

An all-male sex party. Apparently, he’s a power bottom.

He can’t claim it was nothing more than experimentation during his college days, either, because it happened last year while he was in Thailand at a retreat.

For Christian husbands.

Run by one of the religious organizations Stella used to work for. And three other convention participants well-known in DC circles attended that sex party with him and were caught on film doing all manner of things.

Yeeeaaaah. I cannot make this shit up if I tried.

I guess people had the guy followed while he was there. Richmond apparently thought the ban on cell phones at the party would protect him.

He didn’t account for the possibility of hidden cameras.

Plenty of people are biding their time to blow the doors off that particular scandal until October, so that it leaves the party scrambling to do damage control and gives them a mortally wounded candidate right out of the gate. Hell, there’s supposition he’ll drop out if that happens but it’ll leave egg on the face of the party, as well as piss off a whole lot of voters who will rightfully feel like the GOP deceived them yet again.

The whole “do as we say and not as we do” crowd.

Ciro might not win over many voters from their staunch base but it hopefully will be demoralizing enough to make them stay home in disgust on election day, or write in another candidate, or vote for a third-party or Libertarian candidate who doesn’t have a chance in hell of winning.

Any of those options are perfectly acceptable because they dilute the votes in Ciro’s favor.

Meanwhile, Leo jumps the necessary hurdles to fulfill my parents’ request and purchases the other properties, and works with attorneys to set up a land trust for our newly expanded hideaway. When conservative news pundits try to build that molehill into a mountain, several ecologists and wildlife experts loudly speak up about how setting aside those priceless woodlands to protect them from future development will be instrumental in protecting delicate species of plants and animals in the region, as well as help keep the watershed ecosystem healthy.

The “sothere” is implied.

Once that “scandal” gets less traction than racing slicks on a wet Florida interstate in the middle of a hurricane, FNB and Fox and the rest let it drop and desperately try moving on to something else in an attempt to put any kind of dent in Ciro’s poll numbers.

The thing is, every time they try that, one of the trials—or plea deals—of someone involved in the attacks gets placed front and center in the news cycle and reminds people how aggressively my DOJ is tracking down every last person responsible and prosecuting them.

A restlessness settles into my soul, a desperate desire to befree.

A fear something else might happen to interfere with that dream, that my happiness with my men might be snatched from my fingers before we have a chance to savor it.

The “October Surprise” this year is the bombshell about Colby Richmond and his infidelities dropping on the morning of October 2nd, just as early voting is really ramping up in many key states.

Richmond’s poll numbers tank overnight. GOP same-precinct exit polling data already shows far lower Republicans turn-out than in previous elections. Fox and FNB already lament the GOP’s election loss as a done deal and are casting plenty of blame. Meanwhile, Richmond’s wife abandons the traditional “stand by your man” position and files for divorce and full custody of their children.

October also heralds my last Trick-or-Treat event at the White House. This year it’s smaller because of security concerns and is only for children of White House staffers and a few pre-selected and heavily screened military families.