The Political Whore

By Heidi Lux
Daily Loaf contributor

Cross-posted from the Daily Loaf blog.

I have a secret I can no longer keep. It burns my soul and pains my conscience. I had an affair. I loved a man powerful in Florida politics, and he loved me back. I cannot reveal his name. My honor and his lawyers do not permit me. I will refer to him only as C. He currently seeks more power, and I know that rumors will begin to fly, so I submit my story publicly to save us both, and our love, from the public’s harsh scrutiny.

It all began in the winter of 2008. I was a 19-year-old USF student, wandering through my studies with no real direction, still trying to find myself among the textbooks and study halls. My life did not live up to my name – Destiny St. Clair – and my bright red hair spoke of an excitement I could not claim. I was, I must say, average in every way, certainly not the type you might soon expect to be sipping champagne on yachts with the most powerful man in the state.

I can remember the exact moment my life changed forever. Jan. 30, 2008, the day John McCain won the Florida Republican primaries. “That man is such a silver fox,” my older sister, Fate, said as we watched the announcement on TV. C. was standing at a podium behind John McCain, looking pleased as they announced the elderly senator’s victory. “How is that man even still a bachelor.”

At 51, C. had remained unmarried, and our state of Florida had received that rarest anomaly, a bachelor politician. Most public servants had the constant support of a beautiful and loving wife standing by their side, but not he. But every political accomplishment C. achieved was without the usual cheerleader and confidant of a first lady, that well dressed and perfectly coifed silent figure standing behind her man and nodding in agreement with every word he said. For every public appearance he stood alone with no charming trophy wife quietly by his side. And after his long hard day of governing, he would retire to his wing in the Governor’s Mansion alone, finding no freshly made up southern lady to give him a blowjob and beer while he watched sports to unwind. Such was the tough life of a single governor–harder than one could imagine.

“He can govern my state anytime he wants!” Fate said, unable to find any more significance in the moment than the chiseled lines of C.’s features.

“I heard he lives near us,” I said. “If we ever met him, he’d be so into you. I bet you’re so his type.”

If anyone could tame the bachelor governor, it was Fate. She was feminine and charming with hair that always seemed to be perfectly styled no matter what she was doing. Fate had competed in beauty pageants as a child, so, naturally, she would make the perfect politician’s wife.

“Seriously?” she chortled. “He’s gay, Destiny. I mean, he’s still in the closet because you can’t be a gay Republican, but it’s everywhere that he is.”

I was shocked to hear Fate put it so bluntly, but I had remembered hearing gay rumors. Malicious whispers during campaign season. They never said it out loud, but his rivals would insinuate there was something “not quite right” about a man in his fifties being a lifelong bachelor. And when his penchant for brightly colored shirts and ties that brought out the warmth of his bronzed tan was added to the equation, the bloggers would do the math, and every time it would add up to gay.

If C. had been a single dad or an eligible divorcee, the rumors would have been laid to rest. And if he had been a widower, too loyal to his dead wife to let himself fall in love again, he would have been a hero, the media painting a glamorous picture of his beautiful romance, and how tragically it ended, killed by a drunk driver. C.’s unmarried status would have been spun as something honorable and noble, and possibly even a piece of legislation. But he would never have exploited it. In fact, he would have gone out of his way to make that point several, several times whenever he brought it up out of the blue during a campaign speech. Nobody would even have thought of calling him gay.

But despite C.’s moderate politics and affable personality, and his optimism in improving the quality of life in Florida, he was trailed by whispers all along the campaign trail, nasty rumors used to try to drive voters away from the popular candidate. They clearly failed, since the election results showed a large number of both Republicans and Democrats pulling the lever for C. In fact, for some mysterious reason I was certain might be explained later, the rumors seemed to work in his favor.

I looked back at the TV as C. grinned and clapped in support of Senator McCain the very same way a wife would have done for C. in November two years prior. I noticed C. possessed a certain magnetism I was never aware of before. He was good looking. Very tan, as you’d expect any governor to be, and incredibly well put together, like something cut out of a menswear catalogue. I wondered what that man standing in the back and to the left of John McCain was like. Was he really gay as Fate, along with every gay man in the southern peninsula, claimed?

As I sat on the couch of our middle class Tampa apartment, pondering our governor on a TV that wasn’t even a flat screen, I had no idea that my life, and the state of Florida, would soon be changed forever…

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