"Thank you, Margaret."
"You wanted to see me?"
"Yeah."
"Is this about the gun bill?"
"Nope. Sit down, Sam."
"Okay."
"Sam, your sex life is none of my business."
"I think we're agreed on that."
"But I'm hearing rumors that you may have inadvertently created a situation that could prove very awkward for you, and by extension, for the President, and that unfortunately makes it my business."
"Rumors?"
"From Toby, and rightly so."
"Josh told Toby about that?"
"I thought that you told Toby."
"Wait. What are you talking about?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Nothing."
"Sam?"
"Nothing! Only… that's kind of how it started."
"How what started?"
"I don't think that you really want to know."
"I'm absolutely positive that I don't want to know, but now you are going to tell me anyway."
"Well… Josh and I may have recently… just once… in a moment of weakness… had a thing."
"A thing?"
"Yes."
"You and Josh had a thing."
"Yes. But it's over."
"It is."
"Josh said that it would never happen again because we couldn't risk the press getting wind of it."
"And you thought that consorting with a prostitute would go down better with the press?"
"Escort."
"What?"
"She's an escort. Quite well-compensated, I might add. Elite."
"God, Sam."
"We're just friends."
"Have you slept with her?"
"We're just friends!"
"Have you slept with her?"
"Yes."
"Oh, Sam."
"But that was before."
"Before what?"
"Before I was made aware of… the nature of her employment."
"That's not gonna matter."
"She's very discreet."
"Are you meeting in public places?"
"Of course."
"That was the wrong answer."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"It's not like we have anything to hide."
"Again, that doesn't matter."
"You're disappointed."
"No, I'm not."
"Yes."
"To be disappointed, I would have had to expect you to act more sensibly in the first place."
(Pause)
"Is there anyone else around here with whom you could sleep to make this conversation even more awkward?"
"Well, there's Mallory."
"Who?"
"Never mind."
"About this woman."
"Laurie."
"You know what I'm asking, Sam."
"It's innocent, Leo."
"I don't care what it is, I care what it looks like!"
"Really?"
"In this case, in my position as the White House Chief of Staff, yes, really!"
(Pause)
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"I'll take your advice in the spirit in which it was intended."
"You'll do a lot more than that!"
"Was that all?"
"Just a minute, Sam. Was this why you were busting Josh's chops during Charlie Young's job interview?"
"Josh told you about that?"
"No, but I hear things."
"Leo, as far as I'm concerned, as long as employees do the job they were hired to do, their private lives are nobody's business."
(Pause)
"Go back to work, Sam."
"Thank you, Leo."
Author's note: There will be more.