Dupont Circle
(Five Times Josh and Donna Never Slept Together - And One Time They Maybe Did)
Fandom: The West Wing
Disclaimer: It's Aaron Sorkin's; not mine. Are we shocked? I think not.
Characters/Pairings: Josh/Donna
Rating: strong R
Word Count: 7296
Summary: They say that hell is paved with good intentions and roofed with lost opportunities. Josh and Donna know this lesson far too well. And Josh and Donna will tell you: the learning curve's a circle.
Author's Note: This started out as a fun little "five things" drabble. Specifically, five times Josh and Donna never fucked, and then amended to include one time they maybe did. It was supposed to be light and simple and short. And then this happened. It turned into a sad thing about lost opportunities that's all too fitting for Josh and Donna if you ask me. Not that you did, or anything. To me, Josh and Donna' relationship has always just been some giant mindfuck, where the two of them dance close enough to be something more than friends, but have enough denial stacked up between each other to fill the nation. So yeah, this story is taking the mindfuck and making it, well, real fucking. And amidst all this fucking, through six different scenarios that may or may not have happened you have the degeneration of a relationship into something else. Or at least that's what I had in my mind when I wrote this. On another note, this fic though, it's literally a thrust and a moan away from being NC-17. You've been warned. Big episode references to"Inauguration II," "Impact Winter," "Galeilo," "Noel," and "War Crimes." Song lyrics used as opener and closer are from "Leave the Earth Behind You and Take a Walk Into the Sunshine" by Ballboy. Enjoy!
(underneath the sheets with your hopes and your fears, and inadequacies, and your sheets and your hopes and your fears.
are you happy with your life?)
There's a girl that they call Donna and a man that they call Josh. There is a girl and there is a man and there is a car that rolls over asphalt, over the road, too late at night, no moon for company from above.
Josh's turning signal clicks a tempo they talk over.
There's a girl that they called Mandy and a man they called Jack. There's Amy and there's Cliff and there's several others gone. It's a cluttered collection of past flames and loves and he'd like to blame them all for the fact that what Donna and he have is something kind of stillborn, something rotating without ever going anywhere.
They talk about a doctor and it makes Josh feel unwell.
"It wasn't particularly romantic," she says, strangely relaxed, slouched in the passenger seat next to him. She speaks like she's drunk and maybe exhaustion, like the studies try to say, really is the equivalent to one glass too many. "I mean, we consummated our relationship before there was a relationship to speak of."
It's more of a grunt than a laugh and he clears his throat before he starts to speak. "What the hell is that? Jane Austen's way of saying 'we fucked before we started dating?'"
She doesn't laugh. "Pretty much. My way just sounds more respectable."
"And that matters because…?"
She sighs and fiddles with the heat.
"Because it's sex, Josh, and the way the story's told tells you everything right there."
He looks away and almost smiles. They shouldn't talk of things like this.
He guides the car around the bend and they ride in silence along the curve.
I
There is an airplane on the television, and trench coats and fedoras, all cast in a shade of black and white and gray.
They are trying to put a man from New Hampshire in the Oval Office.
They are campaigning and they're in what they like to call the heartland, but Josh has yet to see or meet or witness anything that stirs his soul or sets him off on some verbose cliché. The hotel is more like a motel and the view is something akin to barren, Depression-era, Henry Fonda, Grapes of Wrath imagery.
He is tired, but he's still ranting, he's still raving about one thing or the other and his watch is on the nightstand and there are papers strewn across the bed, along the floor. Donna is sitting at a table; Donna is wearing a t-shirt that says University of Wisconsin and she is sitting at a table with poll results, some 7-Up and an empty ashtray. He doesn't smoke and she doesn't smoke and there's an ashtray on the table and the room smells like stale cigarettes and bad film noir.
He talks about electoral reform and gerrymandering and this district versus that. They're trailing in one state and they might be gaining in another and if they can get that other state, not that one but the other, then maybe, just maybe, they can take this. He tells her this and she sighs and paces the floor, threadbare carpet under bare feet and unpolished toes. He keeps talking and she keeps pacing and with his name on her lips, exhaled like the word stop, kind of like impatience, she drops heavily on the bed. The papers slip and slide off the tacky floral bedspread. He asks what and she tells him it's two A.M. His watch is on the nightstand and he runs a hand through his hair. He sits next to her, hunched over and he turns in toward her. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah," she repeats.
There's silence and a gun on the television screen.
He repeats it once again and he's still staring and so is she. He swallows, the sound almost audible in the room and her chest expands as she takes a deep breath.
"Yeah," she murmurs and he's not sure what it is she is agreeing to; he likes to think he's kind of sure what she's assenting. He leans in.
His arm slides up and around her back, settling low around her waist, the t-shirt thin under his hand. She lets him and she waits, her hand resting lightly on his thigh. He kisses her, tentative, almost chaste and she leans in just a little more. A sigh, and it might be him, it might be her, and it's clumsy hands and a deepening kiss.
They're in Kansas or Nebraska, somewhere blank and bare. They're in a hotel and she tastes like flat lemon and lime and something he thinks is all her, all Donna, and he groans into her mouth as he catches her bottom lip between his teeth.
Awkward on the edge of the bed her hand travels up and down his chest as they kiss. His hands tangle in her hair and work their way back down her shoulders, under and up her shirt. He thinks he has been here before, only he was sixteen and she was Julie Adams, head of the debate team, and they were in his father's car and his elbow kept meeting the steering wheel and the positioning was all awkward and wrong and almost kind of perfect.
The bedsprings creak in protest as he shifts his weight, drawing her under him. He thinks he hardly knows her but understands her all the same. He's not sure what that means exactly, but as her teeth scrape down his neck, he thinks it must be something right. She sighs.
Her t-shirt falls to the floor and she makes a noise in the back of her throat as her bra slips down her shoulders. She slides his pants down and he fumbles with a condom wrapper, her arms a tangle of limbs around his neck, hot breath in his ear.
This, this is first date sex. This is sex after the first date, that first date that was more of a crackling chemistry and longing gazes over overpriced wine and entrees than expected, instead of the awkward small talk and the dry kiss good night, and instead of talking about how connected they feel and how they want a second date and maybe a third and several years more they just fuck the words away. It makes sense, he thinks, and the sheets feel scratchy against his arm as he comes, a heavy gasp against her ear.
They lie still, relaxing breath and heartbeats, and she rises slowly off the bed, straightening and brushing the hair off her forehead. Looking down at him she tells him they have a long day tomorrow and an early wake-up call. He should get some sleep.
She says good night with a closing of the door and Josh exhales, long and slow and frustrated. He doesn't lock the door behind her.
The TV is still on, the soft volume a mumbled undercurrent in the room. The TV is on and Rick thinks this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
The screen fades to black.
II
He slams the phone down and exhales something soft and angry. He knows he is a liberal but he doesn't give a fuck about the environment and this bill is only going to help them lose rather than gain and it's been the longest day of his life. Again.
His tie hangs around his neck, undone, his shirt wrinkled and rolled at the elbows. He looks rumpled and he looks tired and he rubs his eyes with balled fists.
Donna sits there, perched on the edge of his desk, a stack of envelopes in hand, all finished speaking about Bosnian refugees and now on Myanmar or something and how the people there still call themselves Burmese or Burmans, or whatever the internationally correct term is, despite the fact Burma doesn't even exist anymore. She punctuates each thought, each sentence, with a lick of a stamp and it's placement on an envelope. It shouldn't be attractive, it definitely shouldn't be arousing, but Donna doesn't get why it can't just be Burma again, and her pink tongue darts out, wetting the back of the stamp, miniature flag waving on its front, and presses it firmly in the corner.
Josh quit listening a while back. He quit listening because in his head beats a word and its taking a considerable amount of energy on his part to keep it silent. Philately. Philately. Philately. Another stamp meets her mouth and the word philately is starting to sound like something else. Something else she can use that mouth for, something that doesn't involve postage or mailboxes or next day delivery.
He's hard at the sight of his assistant licking stamps and talking about political issues that don't even really make the top ten of world issues to be concerned about. There's something wrong with that, and head in his hands, he groans, leaning back dramatically in his chair.
Donna pauses, stamp on her finger, raised halfway to her mouth, her mouth slightly open, head tilted to the side in question and a kind of scrutiny that makes him squirm and he realizes that here, with him arched back in his desk chair it's clearly evident the effect Donna, a stack of envelopes and a book of stamps can have on him. Hell, it's evident the effect that she has on him.
She drops the envelopes and stands slowly. Her eyes watch him, her eyes watch him without meeting his own, and hand on her hip she doesn't move.
"Donna…?" Her mouth, her goddamned mouth, quirks into a funny kind of grin, and she spins around and shuts the door. She shuts the door and he thinks the significant point here is that she locks it.
She walks around the desk, efficient, brisk, and just as quickly drops to her knees before him. He says her name quick, like a question, tentative and maybe more than a little anticipatory.
"This is just getting rather ridiculous," she says, and she might as well be talking of stamps and Burma and Myanmar with that cool, professional tone of her voice. And he doesn't really even know what she's talking about, what exactly is so ridiculous. It could be the stamps and the fact that he's hard just from watching her lick tiny pieces of paper. It could be the fact that the time is creeping towards midnight and she is on her knees, which can't be comfortable, in the office of the Deputy Chief of Staff's office who also just so happens to kind of be her boss. It could be that, it might not be, but Josh is realizing that it really doesn't matter as her fingers slide his zipper down. He probably says her name again, but her mouth is on him and his thought processes seem kind of fried for a second that lasts too long. He knows that there are about seventeen thousand things wrong with what is happening right now, but it's Donna, it's Donna and she's sucking him off, and Jesus, did Bill Clinton have the right idea or what, and he takes a shuddering breath because it's still Donna and it's his office and there's something bizarre about the fact that this all started off stamps and bad jokes and they should have done this ages ago and – and –
His hand grips the back of her head and he thinks that's him moaning and she's not stopping, she's not stopping, and this time he knows he says her name and he comes, hard, and she stays there, down on her knees, down on the hard floor.
His hands slide down to her elbows as he catches his breath, pulling her up and to her feet. She gazes at him quizzically, his hands on her hips, his hands gripping her hips tightly, pulling her skirt up slowly.
She looks almost triumphant, a kind of smirk about her face that you'd have to squint to see, as his hands slide her panties down and past her hips, pooling inelegantly at her feet.
His fingers slide and he rises, pushing her against the desk, against him and she groans quietly.
"This can't be a habit or anything," he whispers in her ear, disrupting the hair hanging there, making it skate across her cheek.
"I know." Her voice doesn't shake at all as she says it, and her hand grips his wrist tight as she comes, silently and he might be a little disappointed.
She pushes his hand away and collects her panties off the floor, redressing and straightening herself out as he zips his pants up, thrusting his hands awkwardly in his pockets. He almost says something along the lines of 'well, that was nice,' or 'was it good for you too?' but stops himself just shy because it's awkward already and he kind of has to see this woman in the morning when she reminds him of a meeting with Leo or a lunch with some senator and it'd be nice to retain a little professional decorum despite the fact she just sucked him off and he made her come against his hand and his desk.
"Yeah, so…" and he doesn't make it any further before Donna retreats to the other side of the desk and interrupts him effortlessly.
"I think I'm going to call it a night. Don't forget about your meeting with the EPA in the morning. Okay?"
He nods and she sort of smiles and just like that she's gone.
The next morning he forgets about the meeting with the EPA and Donna has to call to remind him and call again to reschedule. He gets to the office and there's a fresh book of stamps waiting on his desk. He has no idea what that's supposed to mean.
III
The nurse tells them to drive safe and have a happy holiday. She winks and they leave her there, exiting out into the cold.
They ride back from the hospital in silence, tinny Christmas music playing quietly from the speakers in her car. He thinks they're singing about Jesus and angels and poor kids in Africa. The words are unintelligible all the same and his hand is wrapped in heavy gauze, Donna's mouth set in a firm line.
Staring out the window he realizes he has yet to see her cry over this. She never cried by his bedside, clutching his hand like some fallen soldier. She never cried at his apartment, helping to change bandages, helping him do the things he once called routine. She never cried. And he never thought about it. She was stoic and strong in some weird manifestation of Florence Nightingale or whoever and he wonders if he should be insulted or humiliated for his arrogance that she never shed a tear.
He looks at her quickly and her face is still set, blank, and her fingers are white-knuckled around the steering wheel. He doesn't say a word. She doesn't either.
He fumbles with his keys when they reach his apartment. His hand feels awkward in all the dressing and he can feel himself shaking and it's almost embarrassing and he's more than a little relieved when Donna pulls the keys from his hand, opening the door in one quick motion, ushering him inside.
They walk into his apartment, he throws his coat on the couch, and the window is still broken. Cold air rushes through and the door shuts with a loud slam.
He finds her there behind him, across the room, hand on her hip; a hand covering her mouth and then her eyes and her voice is shaking when she speaks.
"You broke your window. You broke your fucking window…" She already knows this, she already knew that, and he'd be annoyed if it wasn't for the way she says it. There's a note of hysteria there and he finds it hard to look at her.
"Yeah…" he croaks, his eyes flitting around, around to everywhere and everything but her, the window and his hand.
She shudders and he feels as though he should comfort her. He's really not sure now. He stands there and she stands by the door and it's not just awkward, but it's tense as well.
"Alright. So. You're alright then. So I'm just. I'm going to…I'm going to go. Then. Okay?" She says the words quickly, in a strange, brisk fashion he's not used to when it comes to her and he finally looks at her, and she's so pale and this is so strange and so not them.
"You don't…" He clears his throat and then starts again. "You don't want some coffee or anything?" He's grasping at straws and Donna would normally get this. She would get that what he's really asking is for her to stay and she would say okay and she would head to the kitchen and make the coffee herself. This is what they do. This is what they've always done.
"No. Um, no. No. That's okay." She's still staring at the hole in the window. "You should probably get that boarded up. It freezing in here," she says and it's monotonous and so unlike her, and just wrong.
"Yeah. I really should."
"Yeah," she echoes, softly. It pisses him off. He's not sure what this is. He's not sure, but he is sure that he's in pain and that he's suffering and Donna, Donna of all people, has always been there for him through any of this shit, and now, here she is, cold and unapproachable, itching for the door, and he needs her, he needs her and maybe it's this that's making him so fucking angry.
"What is this, Donna?" he asks, and she stares down at her hands.
"What's what, Josh?" She sounds tired and he glares her way.
"You're acting like you're punishing me or something, and that's just fucked up, Donna. It's – "
Her head shoots up and she levels him with a gaze that makes him pause mid-tirade. Yes, she looks tired. She looks tired and angry and absolutely pained. It makes him pause and it makes him hurt, and his mouth moves but no sound comes out.
"You almost died, Josh! Do you not get that? You almost died and I thought…Jesus, Josh, I sat in that hospital and I thought you were dead. I thought…" Her voice cracks and the yelling stops. She takes a deep breath, steadying herself, and when she speaks again her voice is softer, her voice is softer and almost more difficult to listen to.
"I thought I lost you, and then…and then, this, and you break a goddamned window and you're not you and you're kind of gone, and I…I can't deal with this. I can't do it again…I can't…" She sobs, back pressed against the door. He whispers her name and she begs him to stop, just leave her alone, she can't breathe.
He wraps his arm around her waist and pulls her flush against him. She doesn't flinch; she doesn't pull away. She clutches his shirt in a tight fist, her forehead pressed against his neck, whispering words he can't hear. He thinks she might say Jesus and don't leave me, and it's Christmas Eve and he's pretty sure she was supposed to be in Wisconsin and he's supposed to be the broken one and she's supposed to fix him. He doesn't know how it works like this, the other way around, and his fingers dig into her spine.
He kisses her. He kisses her because he thinks this might be love and kissing her is the only thing that seems to make any sense. She kisses him back, and it's shaky, but not timid, and she's still trembling in his arms and he pulls her tighter against him.
His mouth moving against hers, he pulls her away from the door. He pulls her with him and down the hall, stumbling and biting, her hands still clutching his shirt frantically, he gripping her hips, her hair, her, and slamming against his bedroom door with more force than he intended.
Pulling back, kissing along her jawline, his hands pulling at her jacket, her sweater, she chants his name over and over again until it becomes an inarticulate mess of syllables and gasps.
She steps back into the room, tugging his shirt down his arms, indelicately and rough. The back of her knees meet the edge of the bed and she falls back, dragging him with her.
The room is dark, illuminated by the glow of white Christmas lights twinkling outside his window. The room is dark, bathed in an almost blue, and as he thrusts in and out of her, her own hips bucking up to meet his own, he whispers the word love over and over again in her ear. She comes on a sob and he comes with her name mixed with love and collapses with her in his arms.
He wakes to the phone ringing and it's Christmas and Donna is pale and naked, asleep in his bed. His hand hurts and Leo's on the phone and just wants to make sure he's alright, kid. He takes two aspirin and falls back asleep.
When he wakes again, Donna's made breakfast and there's almost a smile on her face and a mug of coffee in her hand, and did he know that apples, not caffeine are more efficient at waking you up in the morning?
He tells her that, yeah, he's heard that. He just chooses not to believe it.
His apartment is freezing cold and wrapped in their own blankets they sip coffee in his kitchen and stare out the closed window.
IV
She doesn't speak. They sit on a park bench for a full hour and Donna doesn't say a word. He doesn't either because the silence is too big a void to fill, and if he's going to be smart about this and if she's going to be correct, he would probably say the wrong thing anyway. She is grateful.
He takes her home after Cliff reappears around the fountain, diary in hand and an unreadable expression. He hopes they have a nice night and with a nod he leaves, just as quickly. He takes her home and he walks her up and into her apartment, ignoring the cats as they circle first her legs and then his own.
She hangs up her coat and doesn't offer to take his, and he stands by the closed door, arms akimbo, watching her move around her small apartment.
"Why did you lie?" he finally asks and she has to ask him what he means.
"The deposition," he says, clarifies. "Why did you lie about the diary?"
"I didn't do it on purpose," she grumbles, tossing her keys onto the table, and the funny thing is, she really didn't. Maybe it's the word diary and the thought of Bridget Jones and the sixth-grade girl connotation with hearts and rainbows and words like forever scribbled in the margins. Maybe she thought it didn't matter. Maybe it was because she knew what was in it because she fucking wrote it and she knows there's not a damn thing about a president and a secret illness, but instead there are enough imagined indiscretions put down in ink that are enough to get an assistant fired for her thoughts.
"Of course," and he doesn't say it out right, but it's there in the awkward pause that follows and his eyes that shift around the room. He doesn't say 'you're doing it again, you're lying again,' but it's there and it pisses her off.
He lies all the time. Why should she be the one who gets called on it?
"Go to hell, Josh," she grumbles without much conviction. She is tired and she stubs her toe on the corner of the counter as she fills the coffee pot with water. She doesn't ask if he wants any.
"Why can't you just answer the goddamned question, Donna?" He follows her into the kitchen, hands on his hips, then crossed about his chest as he leans against the doorframe. He sounds almost conversational, irritated, but still casual and she thinks this should be some kind of warning.
"I did answer it," she says, distractedly, measuring out the coffee. "I did answer. I said I didn't know. And I meant it."
"And um…how did Cliff know exactly that you kept a diary?" He says it slowly, without hesitation, and she knows they're edging towards territory they like to pretend is off the map and somewhere unreal and imagined.
"Josh, we've been over this already. He saw it when he was here. Okay? End of story."
"So, why did you lie when you knew there was a chance that he knew the truth?"
"Jesus Christ." She slams the coffee canister down, hard. "I didn't think this out beforehand! I wasn't sitting there, planning it all out, thinking, 'so, Donna, if he asks about the diary, we're going to lie about this one. Sound good?' And why the hell do you even care? I lied, I apologized, and we averted a crisis. Moving on."
"I just don't really get why you lied." He is still speaking calmly, and maybe it's this that rattles her so much, maybe it's this that causes her to snap.
"Is it the lying that you don't understand or is it the fact that I fucked a Republican that you can't wrap your head around?" She has no idea where that came from and she finds herself looking away, pulling mugs down from the cabinet above her.
"Is that supposed to piss me off, Donna?" He sounds cocky and arrogant and like something else and she doesn't want to figure out what that is because something tells her it's dangerous and she busies herself with a dishrag and the expanse of countertop before her.
"It's not supposed to, but it seems to all the same," she bites back. She studies the aged countertop and the damp rag and she can hear his footsteps as they fall towards her.
She turns around and he's there and the coffee pot gurgles and starts and the clock above the sink ticks the seconds off.
He smiles, and it's unfriendly, and he's invading her space, and this is really nothing new, but there's a certain amount of trepidation and discomfort and maybe it's fear attached to it all and she pushes past him, ignoring his heat as they touch, and moves to the opposite side of the kitchen.
"Why are you still here?" she asks, pulling a carton of milk out of the refrigerator, shutting it too hard, knocking a magnet off and onto the floor.
"You're making coffee," he offers without conviction, with that look still about him, that look she almost knows from late nights at the office when he has the upperhand and he's about to be crowned the victor and he's got all his ducks in a row. She knows this look. She just doesn't remember it being so predatory. She just doesn't remember the dark look about his eyes. The anger from earlier seems almost dead between them, replaced by something else, and maybe that's why her stomach flip-flops as he moves towards her.
"You shouldn't have lied," he repeats, and she's kind of catching on now, because he really doesn't give a damn about the lying. What he means to say but won't because there's this thing called pride that stands in his way is that she shouldn't have fucked Cliff. She shouldn't have fucked Cliff, and if she's reading Josh correctly, and she almost always does, she shouldn't have fucked Cliff and she should have fucked him instead.
She gets her answer when he kisses her without prelude. She gets that he's still pissed when he kisses her like he would rather kill her than love her and she gets that she feels the same when her fingers claw their way down his chest, itching to rip through the coat and onto his skin.
He pushes her pants and panties off of her, and she lets him, and she's pressed against a wall, her bottom half naked, too hot inside in her blouse. She fumbles with his zipper and he brushes her fingers out of the way and does it himself. Legs wrapped around him, head banging against the wall in time with the ticking of the clock she decides this is the most unromantic scenario imaginable.
He fucks her against the wall, still talking and mumbling, because this is Josh, and even in sex, even when trying to prove a point, if that's what this is, silence is difficult for him to obtain. She deems his words nonsense and a tangled collection of obscenities and quits trying to decode them as her gasps grow in volume and frequency. Her kitchen smells too strongly of cheap coffee and she can feel the sweat beading down her spine. And when she comes, seconds after him, she realizes this might be an even bigger mistake than lying to a deposition about a secret diary. Somewhere a bell tolls midnight and the start of a brand new day. Donna wants her cup of coffee.
V
His hands are cold from the snow and she shivers as his hand meets the small of her back. He tells her that she'll have to sit on someone's lap, and there's a smile there that's familiar and flirtatious so she plays along, like it's their usual game they always play.
She understands, seconds after the door closes, that this really isn't the same.
The car starts and she sits, on his lap, in the cab, his arm slung haphazardly slung across her hips. The cab hits a pothole, bounces and she grips his thigh tight as she shifts in his lap. His fingers dig into her hipbones and Charlie and Danny are laughing about something and Toby is grousing about something else or maybe the same something to the cab driver and Josh might have just moaned. Stifling a gasp as she realizes just what she's pressed against, she kind of gets why and feels him press his forehead against her back.
He moves her over his lap, almost rhythmic, imperceptibly, his hands feeling her hips through the fabric of her dress, hidden under his jacket wrapped around her shoulders. He's hard against her ass and she bites back a groan as the car lurches and she presses harder against him.
The ride there isn't nearly long enough or short enough, depending on what view she wants to take of this, and as the cab pulls to a stop she exits on kind of shaky legs and running a hand through her styled hair she tries to get her bearings.
She loses them just as quickly as she feels Josh press his hand into the curve of her back, her nerves already skittish and on fire.
Charlie and Danny still laugh and joke as they enter the building and Toby holds the door open for them, not really looking at either one of them and she blushes because she thinks he knows exactly what is going on here, whatever that may be.
The foyer is bright and the black of her dress stands out starkly against the pale of her skin and she hears Josh clear his throat. She turns to him.
He jerks his head in the direction down the hall, and with a quick glance over her shoulder as the rest shuffle into the ballroom, she follows him, something akin to nerves or fear or maybe just plain desire curling low within her stomach. Her heels click a counterbeat to her racing heart and his audibly heavy breathing.
He keeps walking and he hasn't spoken and his hand catches hers within his own, his palm sweaty, as he leads her down an empty hallway.
He pushes the door open to the women's bathroom and she swallows. This has bad idea written all over it.
He flips the lock and kisses her in two fluid movements. She kisses him back because she's wanted this for years and if she's learned anything she's learned this: take what's given to you when you can, and his arm feels good as it settles low on her waist.
She is wearing black and he wears a tux and they're in a bathroom that's nicer than her apartment, nicer than her home back in Wisconsin. Decorated in whites and golds, and he wears a tux and she's wearing black, and she feels, his hands tangling in the length of her dress, that this should feel far more suave, more debonair than it actually is. Her panties, black, slide down her legs and she guesses it's because they groped in a cab on the way here, and there's nothing classy or romantic about that, and anyway, it's Josh and it's her, and you can dress them up but all they do is take it back off again, strip each other down. She thinks there's something poetic there, maybe something worth further thought, but she's bent over, arms sliding on marble countertop, and this dress is too expensive to be fucking in a bathroom and he's not saying a word, not a word, and it's off-putting and almost frightening, and Josh hasn't said a thing since before the cab and before the ride and before this. Josh is silent and Donna can't seem to put her mind on mute.
It all falls strangely silent as she comes, fingers seeking purchase on the slick marble, eyes shut, ignoring the tableau of the two of them reflected back in the mirror before them.
They remain there for what feels like a second longer than they should. He finally releases her hips and she finally gazes into the mirror, slightly aghast at the sweat on her forehead and her wrinkled dress and her disheveled hair. With shaky hands she smoothes her dress, her hair, and steps back into her panties.
"We should probably get out there," he says. She manages to say the word yes and follows him out the door.
VI
She tells him that she quits and he wants to tell her that she's lost her mind. He doesn't, and he almost wishes that he has, when the next morning, true to her fucking word, there's a temp sitting at her desk and there's a temp placing a mug of coffee on his desk, and just wants to say, Mr. Lyman, it's a real honor to work for him and if there's anything she's doing wrong that, by all means, do let her know. He wants to say, for starters, never bring me coffee again, and for another, leave, run, and find Donnatella Moss and tell her to get her ass back here. He doesn't say that either and this new assistant should feel relieved.
He leaves work early and exhausted. He leaves work and doesn't head home, doesn't think about where he is driving and where he is headed, and when the familiar apartment complex rises before him, he's really not surprised.
He comes to her because he's not sure where else to go. It's pathetic, but it's Donna, and maybe that makes this all forgivable in the end.
When he knocks on the door and she answers it, she's not really shocked and looks more sad than interested.
"Donna," he says, and as she pulls the door farther open to let him in she asks him if he's drunk. He says no, and it's the truth, and she seems to accept it as that.
He paces for a second and she watches without comment. She looks angry and he doesn't know if it's because he's here or if she's just angry in general or angry at herself, angry at him – he has no idea and he can't stop pacing.
"Why did you leave?" he finally asks and she still looks angry, she still looks so pissed and he feels so guilty and he'd really just like to know why.
She sighs when she speaks, and it sounds just like the resignation thrown at him a day ago. "I wasn't supposed to be there anymore."
He goes off because he's Josh and hot-tempered always was a good adjective to describe him. "What the hell are you talking about, Donna? Of course you were supposed to be there. I needed you there. Hell, I still need you there, alright? You understand that. I need you there, working beside me."
She shakes her head. "But I wasn't, Josh. I was always working below you, and I can't…I can't do it anymore."
"That's bullshit, Donna."
"Fuck you, Josh. Fuck you." Her voice shakes and he hopes it's with anger and not tears because he can't handle that; he can't handle that from her. "I can't keep doing this with you. It's been too many years and there's been too little difference and I can't take it, okay? I can't."
"What do you…what…I don't understand."
"Nothing has changed, Josh! Nothing. We can never seem to move forward and…I'm so tired of it." She's the one pacing now and he watches her.
"Move forward… where?"
She keeps talking as though she hasn't heard him. "I mean, you get shot and I…I blow…I blow up and there was the MS and the depositions and Zoey and campaigning, and everything, Josh, everything and nothing ever happened, nothing ever changed and God, I just…I love you, Josh. I love you and I always thought that…you loved me too, and I mean, if we both love each other, that has to mean something right? It has to mean something and it has to change something…but it didn't. So, maybe I'm disappointed and that's why I'm leaving. Maybe just working with you every day isn't enough anymore and I'm tired of wanting and waiting. Maybe I'm just too damn tired of needing you so much and... But, yeah," she swipes a tear out of the corner of her eye. "There it is."
They stand there like this is a bad spaghetti western even though Josh can't figure out who's supposed to be the good guy here, and they stand there, staring each other down, until he finally closes the distance between them.
He kisses her because he's not sure what else to do. She kisses him back, unfriendly, demanding and he didn't think tonight would end like this between them. Her nails dig into the back of his neck, and maybe he was being stupid in thinking that a kiss would be enough to put this fight on hold. She's no longer yelling and she isn't crying and she isn't saying the things he has no desire to hear but she's kissing him like she wants to hate him and he finds himself fighting her back.
She takes him to her bedroom and she rides him, eyes locked together, and there are so many words, and there have been so many years, and so many chances, and when he opens his mouth to speak he finds he can't get a single one of the words past his lips.
They doze together, separate sides of the bed, until five in the morning, before the sun even rises and she stands, naked, pulling a robe over her shoulders and tying it in a tight knot. He follows her lead and dresses without a word, walking behind her out of the bedroom.
Hands in his pockets and she in her robe and as he approaches her door she doesn't say things like I'm sorry, I love you, I'll see you tomorrow. Opening the door and closing it behind him she doesn't say things like 'someday' and he wonders if her silence is her way of telling him good-bye.
Donna drives in the cold and the window fogs as the distance grows. The streetlights are bright and her skin looks blank and pallid in the rearview mirror.
Dr. Jenna Jacobs says the queers are headed straight to hell and that the FDA will be there too with all the whores who dare indulge in birth control and promiscuity. She says nothing of intentions gone awry or opportunities that share the singular quality of being lost and gone and sadly unused and now disposed of.
It disappoints her and she turns the radio off with a quick jab of her middle finger.
She sees bumper upon bumper and thinks she should have listened to the traffic report instead of the preaching of the moral apocalypse. She thinks this might be another past mistake as brake lights flash before her.
She drives and she drives and she finds herself stuck on Dupont Circle. She chokes back a sob and bangs a fist on the steering wheel, the horn blaring at everything and nothing. She tries not to cry, she tries not to cry because she doesn't understand what the passage of time means and she doesn't understand the rarity of second chances and she's stuck here: she's stuck on Dupont Circle.
Deep breath, and it's really not surprising.
They've been traveling in circles for years.
(it's just a little bit further, just a little bit more, just a little bit harder, just a little bit sore, just a little bit lucky, just a little bit good, just a little bit funny, just a little bit cruel –
just a little bit cruel)
fin