W.W. –Wednesday morning.
Donna woke gradually, almost indulgently. She was not awoken by her radio alarm, or the shrill alarm clock that was her backup alarm at home. She did not wake up to the ringing of a cell or the trilling of a pager. Instead, a sliver of sunlight, eluding the curtain over the train window, had crept across her pillow and warmed her face. She squinted against the sunshine and let the motion of the train rock her gently from sleep to waking.
She almost felt guilt for not feeling guilty. Anything after 6:00AM counted as sleeping in, and sleeping in was something that just didn't happen to her, not any more. It was glorious. She took a deep breath and yawned.
The breath caught in her throat. There was an arm around her, and a hand, a very masculine hand, clasped in hers against her breast. Well, that was unusual. She began to recall the events of the previous evening and slowly relaxed to the idea that she had slept with Josh Lyman.
Well, not slept with him, slept with him. They had slept together, slept in the same place. She gave up, there was no way she could phrase this even in her mind that it wouldn't sound naughty and wrong. Wrong, improper. Wrong, inappropriate. Wrong, indiscrete.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Still, it felt awfully good. The hand she held in hers was strong, with nice nails, clean but not too pretty. There were copper curls of short hair, thick but very soft, which glinted in the sliver of sunlight that was still stretching across her. Wrong. Mmm.
Still, there were certain problems to waking up in a narrow bed on a moving train wrapped in the arms of the White House Deputy Chief of Staff. For example, her mouth felt like the floor of a cab, and she was sure her eyes were watery and her skin blotchy from not having had a shower yet. Her hair was probably matted and tangled, and she had to pee, the last issue of which would only grow more urgent as the morning went on.
Thinking about that, and considering her situation, she realized two things more or less simultaneously. First, there was no way without employing levitation she was going to slip out of bed without waking Josh, which meant awkward conversation or at least embarrassedly catching him up when he awoke. Second, at some point in the night, her nightshirt had ridden dangerously far up in front, and scandalously so in the back.
"I wonder," she thought, "how I might possibly slip my shirt back down in between my bare bottom and my boss' groin before waking him."
She smiled, wondering if that last thought had ever been thought before in the history of the White House. Probably, but it was still funny.
Okay, first she had to work her shirt back down, then wake Josh just enough to get past him to the bathroom. After a few quick details were taken care of there, she'd face up to whatever fallout there was for their actions last night and her state of disarray this morning. She took a deep breath and tried to remain calm before moving to adjust her shirt.
"Good morning, Donna," came the smug rumble from just behind her right ear, scaring her almost out of the panties she really wished she was wearing right about then.
W.W.
Some time later, Josh lay on the lower bed, hands behind his head and legs crossed, casually regarding the bottom of the bunk above him. He was trying very hard to stop grinning.
When he first woke, Donna had been breathing quietly against him, their bodies as close as lovers' and the smell of her hair underlining every sensation with a soothing perfume. It wasn't like waking up together for the first time with a new lover, a feeling he had never spent much time analyzing. It wasn't like anything else he knew, really. It was a unique experience, from the joy of watching her sleep, to the thrill of her skin against him.
He'd woken to find himself still spooned against her, a complimentary morning erection poking into her soft round bottom. As usual, when faced with an inappropriate gallant reflex of that kind, he'd started reciting the Bill of Rights under his breath trying to redirect the flow of blood farther north, not wanting her to awake to that, yet not willing to move before he was sure she was awake.
Normally he was back in control of his faculties somewhere around soldiers not being quartered in homes without the consent of the homeowner. Donna, well, she had been more of a challenge. Every time he'd finish an amendment, he'd take a breath and smell her hair. This tended to undue his efforts. He was enumerating the prohibitions against excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishments when he finally felt himself subside.
A few minutes later, he'd become aware that Donna was awake. He'd held still until he was sure, then he'd told her good morning. Her reaction had been a shriek followed by a mad scramble over him, all arms and legs and hair as she dashed to the lavatory.
So now, he lay on her bed (their bed?) regarding the bunk above him and pondering the ways of women. He felt good. Not perfect, as he had no coffee and he was on a train for Florida and not in Washington doing his job. Still, the day had started well.
"Josh, what time is it?" came the call from the lavatory. She sounded irritated.
"It's almost 7:00," he told her. "What, this is like, an hour late to start our day?"
"I wanted to get breakfast before we got there is all," she told him, poking her head out. She didn't look him in the eye. "We get in to Sanford at 8:30, then drive to Orlando. It's about 30 miles or so."
"Hey, do I get a turn in there? You know, before we have to go?" He turned to sit up on the bed.
"Of course, I'm sorry." She stepped out and to the side, drying her face with a towel.
He stood, and they were very close together in the small compartment.
"I'll tell you what," he said impulsively, "why don't you get dressed and just try to score some juice and bagels or whatever. Once we get to Sanford, we'll stop somewhere and get a real breakfast, okay?"
"Whatever you'd like." She said it flatly, the way people at a wake say "Doesn't he look natural."
He frowned, and took her shoulders in his hands. "Donna, what's wrong?"
"It's nothing. Go brush your teeth." She was still avoiding looking at him.
"Okay, well, whatever you want. I'll be out in a few minutes." He let her go and they slipped past each other. He tackled his face and teeth, but there wasn't much to be salvaged with his hair. Fortunately, his hair was bushy enough that people tended to assume he'd meant to do with it whatever it wound up doing.
He wondered if things had gone too fast. It was only about twenty hours since he had first admitted to Donna in C.J.'s office that his feelings for her were not based solely in friendship.
He hung his head, and then looked himself in the eye.
"Scared her off. After six years, after everything. Excellent. Way to go, asshole."
Well, time for damage control. Maybe he could find some way to let her know that he was in no hurry, though he was. Some way to show her things didn't have to change between them, though they had. Some way to reassure her he wasn't in love with her, though he was.
He turned to the bathroom door and rapped it with his knuckles.
"Donna, you decent?"
He heard no reply and called louder, "Donna? Coming out!"
He stepped out, a cautious grin on his face, but she was gone. Her bag and laptop were gone too, and the beds were folded up. On his chair was an index card.
"Decided to work. See you at 8:30. Breakfast later is fine. –D"
He looked at it for a moment, and pursed his lips, blowing a tuneless whistle. He crumpled the card in his hand and arced it towards the trash.
"Excellent," he swore softly.
W.W.
By the time they reached the station, unloaded their car and got oriented, it was almost 10:00AM. Donna was in her own world, and Josh was trying to give her space. He eased his car out of town and onto 417-South. He watched signs for Denny's and IHOP and a dozen others flash by before they registered. He was supposed to be finding somewhere for breakfast.
Donna was looking out the window quietly, lost in her own world.
"Do you know what you want?" Josh asked her, indicating the signs for a half dozen eateries at the approaching exit.
"Good question," she said, still looking idly out the window. "I've been asking myself since Nashua, 'what do I want?' I've wondered what it would be like, actually trying to make some kind of relationship with you. What do I want? I want you to care about me, and take care of me, and respect me, and let me take care of you and support you in your work because what you do actually matters."
She turned and looked at him.
"What do I want? I want you to put me ahead of everything except the President. I want to not worry when they next Joey Lucas comes to town, the next cute liaison from the Hill or some woman from NASA with her own telescope stops by and suddenly gets your full attention. I want you to let me love you the way I want you to love me. That's what I want."
Exhausted, deflated without all that bottled up, she shrank back into her seat. Her head tipped slowly forward and her hair swept forward to hide her face.
He nodded once, and cut over to exit the freeway, cutting off an old man in a beat up Dodge who glared at him as they passed. He hit the exit still merging right and slipped into the traffic on the access road, eyes hunting back and forth like a predator's.
He saw a parking lot ahead for a liquor store, and began heading towards it. Then just past it he saw a side street lined with palms and some sort of flowering bushes, and he cut decisively towards that instead, running the car fast and hard into the turn.
"Josh!" Her hands were on the dashboard and she was looking at him in alarm. "What are you doing?"
"Finding a decent place to stop the car," he said, measuring the gap between two slow moving old junkers and flying between them. Just ahead, he saw a small square with a flag flying, maybe a post office or a school, something like that. He slowed and pulled with a jolt into the parking lot.
"Josh," she said, looking around in confusion, "Josh, I'm sorry. Really, I didn't mean it. Why are we stopping?"
"Hop out," he told her, unbuckling and opening his door.
"Josh, I don't understand," she called after him, but he was out and moving around to her side. She quickly fumbled her buckle off and stepped out as he opened her door.
"I'm sorry, Josh, I guess- I guess I kind of- I just kind of vented there," she told him, tripping over her words in a very un-Donna like way. "What are we stopped for?"
"Because," he told her, taking her hands in his, "I'm not about to have the first of what I plan on being many of kisses happen in traffic on some Florida freeway."
"Well, why didn't you mmmph!" Her words were cut off as he stepped in to her, slipping one hand to the small of her back and the other to the nape of her neck. His lips caught hers, and she was kissing him and he was kissing her. It started savage and fast and amazing. Then it became slower, more languorous and soft, and also amazing. She leaned in to him, and he stroked her back slowly as he eased the pressure of his lips on hers. Finally, after several breathless moments, he pulled back. She saw that his eyes were closed and his expression was reverent.
"Thank you." He pulled back and took a deep breath. He opened his eyes and looked back and forth from one of her eyes to the other, trying to look as deeply as he could into her soul. "Thank you very much."
"Any time," she said, dazed.
"Okay then," he said and kissed her again, warm and tender and joyful. She reached her hands into his hair and pulled his face to hers.
"Hey," came a voice from a few feet away, "you all can't do that here."
They stopped, and turned to see an old person (woman?) with a cane sitting on a bench. She was smiling from beneath a shag of ragged gray hair and enormous sunglasses.
"This is Federal property," she said, waving at the US Post Office signs at the entrance to the drive. "You can't go kissing a woman on Federal property mister."
"You should try telling my boss that," Josh said, making Donna giggle as she smoothed her blouse and tried to regain her composure. "But thank you, anyway. Come on, Donna, let's go get something to eat."
Grinning like fools, they got back into the car and wandered around till they found a restaurant. Neither one said anything, but once they got to the diner, they somehow wound up on the same side of the booth, holding hands till their food arrived.
The coffee was horrible, and the waffles were fabulous. Neither one made the slightest impression on Josh and Donna as they sat together. They paid the check, completely forgetting to get their receipts for expensing, and got back into the car for the drive to Orlando and the Grand Floridian.
As Josh pulled out of the parking lot, Donna ducked out of her belt and leaned across the car long enough to plant a quick peck on his cheek. When he turned, she was already slipping back under her belt.
"You sir, are welcome," she said without waiting for him to speak, and he grinned and started driving. The day was definitely looking up, he thought.
