My name is Ainsley Hayes. I am a born and raised conservative Republican who believes that the Equal Rights Amendment is a totally unnecessary affectation of a nation that can't read its own Constitution – specifically, the 14th Amendment thereto. I work at the White House. I am in love with one of my co-workers. Did I mention that I'm the only Republican on staff at a very liberal Democratic White House?
Yes, I, the woman once voted "Most Likely to Belt Helen Gurley Brown on Principle", am in love with a Democrat. Not just any Democrat, either. No, I'm in love with the President's primary speech writer – the one who crafted what even I have to admit was one of the best State of the Union speeches in recent history just last month.
Can ya'll tell that I'm still slightly amazed by this fact?
Not the speech – the fact that I'm in love with the man who wrote it. Samuel Norman Seaborn, Attorney at Law, Presidential Speechwriter, and Liberal Democrat, is the man still sleeping peacefully in the bed across the room while I sit here trying to make sense of all this.
It's been two weeks and a day since Valentine's Day, when the magic finally happened for both of us at the same time. It had been building for a while.
The penultimate stone in the arch we have now built was Sam's adoring comment about me looking so sexy in my backless black dress that a well-trained dog would break his leash to get me. What I liked about that comment – despite what some others who bang the Feminist drum might think – is that it makes me superior to Sam, as is properly the case. Any man who calls himself a dog when complimenting a woman is definitely clued in to the truth about gender relations.
Okay, that's not really why I liked the comment. Really, it was the fire in Sam's eyes as he looked at me – and he was looking into my eyes when he said what he said, not at my breasts or my backside or my lips. That was bold of him.
I was bold enough to ask him out for Valentine's Day the next morning. He said yes.
I also asked him in for Valentine's Day. Well, if one were to cross-examine me, I'd have to admit that I really gave him no choice in the matter. Not that he complained, mind. Nor has he, since.
The past two weeks have been utterly amazing. We have grown closer than I ever thought two human beings could be. We have shared the most intimate secrets of our souls, things no one else has ever known.
I told him about the date rape I endured in college. Only the therapist who helped me cope knew until I told Sam, crying as I did so. He held me in his arms and wiped my tears, not saying any of the usual stupid things people say when someone is crying. Instead, he asked me if I still needed the closure of a trial – because if I did, he would devote his energies to sending the man away for a very long time. I wish I could take him up on that offer, but I explained to him that the man in question was later murdered by a jealous husband after the husband caught his wife and my attacker in flagrante dilicto.
"But I love you for offering," I told him, and kissed him. And a lot more, too.
He told me about his fiancée, the whole story that even Josh doesn't know in detail. He was so hurt by the whole situation, by her lack of understanding that he needed to follow his ideals, and by his own inability to explain it so she could understand. I think what hurt him most, however, was that it was so easy in the end to leave her behind. Because that's what he did; I could see that the day of the State of the Union, the few times that I saw her as she shadowed Sam for the day.
He has also shared two other truly intimate things with me, and I am the first human being other than Sam to know these things about him. The first would not be any big deal to reveal to others; he just prefers to keep it private. The second, well…
The first one is that Samuel Norman Seaborn considers the making of hot chocolate to be a sacramental celebration. Really.
He showed me earlier tonight why this is the case.
"You have pure cocoa, sugar, and milk – whole milk, mind you, not 2%, 1%, or, God forbid, skim – when you start." With that, he carefully measured three cups of milk into a saucepan. Then he began scooping cocoa powder into the pan. Perhaps I should say "ladling" cocoa powder into the pan, because these were the most heaping spoons I have ever seen. I lost count at 8 of these mammoth mounds. He would have ladled the sugar, too, but sugar doesn't heap the way flour and cocoa do – I lost count at 14 spoons of sugar.
In the pan, there were, it seemed, equal parts milk, cocoa, and sugar. Truthfully I was thinking chocolate syrup was a more likely outcome than hot chocolate.
"The we turn the heat on very low and begin to stir, gently yet thoroughly, constantly and carefully." He set to the blending with his special whisk reserved only for the purpose of making his hot chocolate. "And you will see, in about 10 minutes, that we no longer have milk and cocoa and sugar, but a nectar of exquisite purity that can only be a libation to the gods. Transubstantiation in the ritual of the mixing." Sam grinned at me. "Hoc est enim cioccolata fervena meae."
"Should I ring a bell?" I asked, eyes wide and innocent.
He looked at me with his deep brown eyes twinkling. "You already ring my bell."
For the record, the hot chocolate was truly the very best I have ever had, and miraculously, it really was hot chocolate rather than chocolate syrup.
That's not embarrassing at all. In fact, I think it's rather nice. But I like the shared meaning, so I'll keep that secret.
The second one, well, ya'll won't believe it. I've seen it and I don't – I had no idea I could trump Doubting Thomas.
Sam records 5 hours of television every week. He won't watch the tape unless he's reasonably sure that he'll be able to watch the whole tape in one sitting, so sometimes he has 3 or 4 tapes stacked up to watch.
What's on these tapes? Five hours a week – it has to be a soap opera, maybe Days of Our Lives or The Young and the Restless, right?
Wrong.
Oprah?
Wrong.
Jerry Springer?
Wrong.
Rosie?
I wish. Think Public Television.
The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer?
One would hope, but wrong.
Are You Being Served?
Again, I wish.
Sesame Street?
Oh, come on. That's the funniest show on television besides Frasier. Keep thinking.
Read Between the Lions? Arthur? Dragon Tales?
No, none of the above, although you're in the right genre.
Barney!?
Even worse.
Yes, really.
Samuel Norman Seaborn watches the Teletubbies.
It gets even more disturbing. He knows them all by name and color and sings their silly songs with them. I know this because I witnessed it. Ten hours worth – okay, it was only 8 by the time we fast-forwarded through the sponsorship information and the coming attractions. But it was still 7 hours, 59 minutes, and 30 seconds too much for me.
Why does Sam watch the Teletubbies?
Surprisingly, Sam actually has a good answer – even for this Republican gal.
It seems that his fascination with the Teletubbies began on the day in February, 1999 that Jerry Falwell (who, for the record, does not reflect the opinions of every conservative Republican or of every conservative Christian!) announced that Tinky Winky is gay. More accurately, the National Liberty Journal pronounced the sentence and Falwell concurred. Sam decided that anything that would get the conservative right so worked up deserved a look-see for policy purposes, so he tuned in to the toddlers' program just to check it out.
And promptly decided that the four ridiculously colorful characters with the televisions in their tummies were funny, sweet, and innocent (red handbags, purple skin and triangular antennae included) – three things he didn't have nearly enough of in his life. So he added them.
He also admitted to checking out The Little Mermaid and The Lion King frame by frame just to see if there was any credence to the NLJ contentions about them. There wasn't, as even I could have told him. I mean, I personally think Falwell is a bad spokesman for our cause because he's a comic figure when he does stupid things like that. There are so many more important things than the sexual preference of a children's television character or the presence (or absence) of subliminal sexual messages in an animated movie.
Back to Sam. He has sworn me to absolute secrecy on pain of thorough, public embarrassment in kind (he says he'd think of something) if I ever, ever tell anyone about the Teletubbies. I'm thinking that a note to Josh to be opened before the Best Man's toast at our wedding reception would be good…
Oh, did I just say, "our wedding reception"?
Yeah, honey, he's the one. I've got him on the leash for life.