Author's Note: I am attempting to re-write this series to conform to the new standards of Fanfiction.net. It may take awhile. The complete and unabridged series can be located at http://spitzthecat.tripod.com.
"Damn it!" I hung the phone up in disgust.
"What's wrong?"
Josh was leaning in the doorway of his office watching me with a small smile on his face.
"My roommate and I were supposed to go see a show tonight."
"Yeah. That's why you browbeat me into letting you leave early tonight."
"She just cancelled on me. Her boyfriend is having a crisis." I took in the widening smirk on Josh's face. "Yes, her taste in men is as bad as mine."
"So, what's the problem?"
"I really want to see this show!"
"So, go."
"I'm not gonna go by myself."
Josh paused for a minute, like he was considering what he had planned for the evening. "I'll go with you," he shrugged. "I'll even pay you for her ticket."
I stopped fiddling with the paperclips on her desk and started to grin. "Maybe I'll see if CJ is free."
"Donna!" he whined.
"Seriously, Josh. You'll regret this and then you'll bitch about it for like a month."
"No, I won't!"
****
So, that's how we ended up here at the Kennedy Center. Tenth row center. Josh put on his tux when I returned from the ladies room in a black, slinky thing that shows more than it covers. My roommate and I were going to try club cruising after the show. It's opening night, so we aren't over-dressed.
"The V-v-vagina Monologues?"
"You insisted on coming." I smirk, wondering how Deputy Downer is going to make it through this performance. CJ wants a recitation of his behavior tomorrow. She'd laughed so hard tears had come when I told her that Josh had invited himself along.
Josh turns in his seat and glares at me.
"Okay, bad choice of words," I concede.
"There are like 9 guys here."
"And you'll get to say words that you've never been allowed to say before," I mutter, flipping through my playbill trying to ignore his whining.
It isn't long before the house lights come down and the stage lights come up on three women perched on stools.
I'm worried about vaginas. I'm worried about what we think about vaginas, and even more worried that we don't think about them. I'm worried about my own vagina. It needs a context of other vaginas - a community, a culture of vaginas.
I think Josh just moaned. And I don't mean like that.
There's so much darkness and secrecy surrounding them - like the Bermuda Triangle. Nobody ever reports back from there.
Every woman in this place is laughing. Now, I've read the book and caught the end of the HBO special one night, so I'm pretty aware of what's coming. Josh is about to be blindsided by femininity. And we haven't even gotten to the good part yet.
Let's just start with the word "vagina." It sounds like an infection at best, maybe a medical instrument: "Hurry Nurse, bring me the vagina." "Vagina." "Vagina." Doesn't matter how many times you say it, it never sounds like a word you want to say. It's a totally ridiculous, completely unsexy word. If you try to use it during sex, trying to be politically correct - "Darling, could you stroke my vagina?" - you kill the act right there.
It's official, Josh is mortified. I doubt he has ever used the word vagina. We've barely gotten 10 minutes into the show and he's white as a sheet, deer in the headlights look plastered on his face.
They blow through the introduction, which is just hysterical. Especially the part about the different names for it. Where I was growing up, we called it a coochi.
Before you know it they're off and running with the first monologue. Of all of them, this is a little personal. Yeah, Dr. Freeride had a think about shaving me. It turned him on. It did nothing for me. He did it anyway.
If your vagina could talk, what would it say, in two words?
Slow down.
I think I'm going to hyperventilate. I steal a glance at Josh who has tears running down his face, he's laughing so hard. Who knew? The second monologue, I think will stop the flood of tears. Flood. Okay, so my choice of words tonight is questionable.
Down there? I haven't been down there since 1953. No, it had nothing to do with Eisenhower.
Nope, he's still laughing. Harder than I am. I reach over and smack him on the shoulder. "You aren't supposed to think this is THAT funny."
"I'm sorry," he gasps. "But my Aunt Frannie had a thing for Eisenhower."
Oh, I get it. Yeah, he can laugh that hard. I met his Aunt Frannie. She was, and I'm being polite here, a little on the repressed side.
The clitoris is pure in purpose. It is the only organ in the body designed purely for pleasure That's a higher concentration of nerve fibers than is found anywhere else in the body it is twice twice twice the number in the penis. Who needs a handgun when you've got a semiautomatic.
"Hey!" Josh leans over, looking indignant. "That's not fair."
"Life's not fair, Joshua."
This is how I came to love my vagina. It's embarrassing because it's not politically correct. I mean, I know it should have happened in a bath with salt grains from the Dead Sea, Enya playing, me loving my woman self. I know the story.
"Salt grains?"
His confusion is written all over his face. I decide to put him out of his misery. I mean, he could really learn something here.
"It's a chick thing, Josh. Shut up and listen."
He shrugs and returns his attention to the stage.
Then I met Bob. Bob was the most ordinary man I ever met. He was thin and tall and nondescript and wore khaki clothes. Bob did not like spicy foods or listen to Prodigy. He had no interest in sexy lingerie.
"Bob's obviously never met the right sexy lingerie."
I reach over and slap the back of his head.
I didn't particularly like Bob. I would have missed him altogether if he hadn't picked up my change that I dropped on the deli floor.
"At least Bob's a Democrat."
Another smack.
I went to bed with him. That's when the miracle occurred. Turned out Bob loved vaginas. He was a connoisseur. He loved the way they felt, the way they tasted, the way they smelled, but most important, he loved the way they looked. He had to look at them.
A tap on my arm this time.
"What, Joshua?"
"This is a rarity?"
I turn to look at him and he's more confused by this revelation then he was by the whole bath salt thing. "Yes."
"You mean, most guys don't stop to say hi'? So to speak?"
His forehead is doing that wrinkling thing.
"No. Shut up, we'll talk about it later."
"I want to talk about it now. Obviously, there is a problem here."
"Joshua," I nudge his chin with my hand and point him back towards the stage. They've moved into the one about rape and genital mutilation. I think we're both going to be sick, but Josh is especially green through the whole thing. The next one is lighter.
My vagina is angry. It is. It's pissed off. My vagina's furious and it needs to talk.
Sing it, sister!
Then there's the exams. Who thought them up? There's got to be a better way to do those exams.
I have to remind myself to breathe, I'm laughing so hard.
Why the rubber gloves? Why the flashlight all up there like Nancy Drew working against gravity, why the Nazi steel stirrups, the mean cold duck lips they shove inside you? What's that?
Josh has this little grin on his face and his eyes are shining with laughter. When he'd bitch about physical therapy visits during his recovery, I'd make him feel better with annual exam descriptions.
We laugh and smile our way through a few more stories. I'm starting to be glad I brought him. He hasn't laughed and enjoyed himself like this since You know? I don't think I've ever seen him enjoy himself like this.
I call it cunt. I've reclaimed it, "cunt."
Yes, his mother raised him well. Given the opportunity to shout /that/ word at the top of his lungs, he refrains. I, however, scream it out with gusto. Hey! We're reclaiming here. Shout it with me now!
Josh just shakes his head at my inhibition.
There's the clit moan.
Oh my god. This is my favorite part. This is the part I caught on HBO, this is the part that made me go buy the book. I listen in rapt fascination and unabashed awe as the woman on stage moves through examples of all these moans and steal glances at Josh, who is laughing and shaking his head.
The WASP moan.
The silence on stage is shattered by the noise coming from the audience. Which is nothing compared to the moan coming from the actress as she demonstrates the:
Surprise triple orgasm moan.
The rest of the performance is really anti-climatic, so to speak. All that's left is a relatively new piece on birth, that neither Josh or I can relate to.
***
As we leave the theater and maneuver through the crowds, I am more conscious of Josh's hand, hovering at the small of my back. My vagina has no problems with thong underwear, in case you were wondering.
"Would you like to get dinner?" he asks, politely.
Who is this man and what has he done with my boss?
"I'm not really hungry. I could stand to get a drink though," I reply.
We end up in a small, empty bar not far from the Kennedy Center. Josh goes to the bar and I grab a table for two towards the back. He has his tie undone and jacket slung over his arm by the time he delivers the drinks and a basket of popcorn. Oh, he's wearing the suspenders. Wow.
"Thanks for letting me join you," he says, setting everything down.
"You enjoyed it?" I raise an eyebrow at him.
He smiles and ducks his head.
"CJ put $20 up that you wouldn't make it through the introduction," I tell him, taking a sip of the whiskey sour.
"Who took that bet?"
"Toby. He said you'd bail during the flood."
"Toby is as repressed as my Aunt Frannie."
All I can do is shake my head and laugh.
"Seriously, though. What's so special about this Bob guy?"
I'm saved from answering by the arrival of the cast and VIP party. It becomes obvious why this bar was empty. Josh and I both stand up when we see the First Lady enter. Some of the detail agents acknowledge us and that gains us some disdainful attention. Oh my, I haven't seen looks like this since Ann Stark sold Toby out.
Dr. Bartlet has spied us. Well, at least I don't feel like a pariah anymore. She makes a move to come say hello and is not five feet from us when she intercepted by one of the theater's PR people, who positions himself with his back towards us.
"Mrs. Bartlet. I apologize. We made reservations with this bar and your Secret Service people have had an agent here all night. I have no idea how anyone got in." His voice carries through the entire bar.
I don't feel like a pariah, I feel like a leper.
Protocol, which we are both well versed in, prohibits us from sitting back down until the First Lady has acknowledged us and set us free, so to speak. So we continue to stand, the object of everyone's curiosity.
She nods her head at the PR puke, gracefully sidesteps him and, in a tone I thought was reserved for the President when he's being a jackass, says, "Well, I'm sure the agents guarding' the bar had no objection to their presence."
She takes another few steps and joins us.
"Josh!" He smiles and returns her embrace, kissing her cheek while she steals his beer.
"Dr. B. Zoey decide against joining you?" I shoot him a look, wondering just why he picked this bar.
"Charlie wouldn't come, so they went to some dance club," she replies.
"She was in my office today, talking about some show you wanted her to go to. She couldn't tell me for sure what it was though," he explains.
Have I mentioned that the PR puke is absolutely green?
Abbey nods and turns to me, "You look fabulous, Donna."
"Thank you, ma'am."
"Off the clock tonight, Donna," she says with a smile, giving me a brief hug.
"Yes, ma'am," I reply to her laughter.
"I'm not sure I want to ask." She gestures at the space between Josh and I with his beer.
Josh has the decency to blush at her innuendo before liberating his beverage. The First Lady gets tight when she drinks beer.
"Let me get you a drink, ma'am." He slinks away to the bar.
"My roommate canceled on me," I begin. "He invited himself."
Abbey smiles with a laugh, "Did you enjoy it?"
"Yes, ma'am. I'd read the book, but it was a different experience to see it on stage."
Josh returns with a glass of wine for Dr. Bartlet. She thanks him and asks him if he enjoyed himself.
"Yes, ma'am. It was an interesting experience."
We've been joined by several people and Abbey decides introductions are in order.
The PR puke turns out to be a guy named Gerald, I didn't catch his last name. He introduces Abbey to the actresses and the director and a few other dignitaries.
Abbey, ever the woman I aspire to be, greets everyone with grace and turns to us, gesturing to Josh first. "This is Josh Lyman. He's the Deputy White House Chief of Staff."
Josh smiles and compliments the actresses on their performances, mentioning that it was the first time he'd ever been offered the opportunity to use /that/ word.
The First Lady then turns to me, "This is Donna Moss, she's the Senior Assistant to the Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Planning."
We spend the rest of our drinks making small talk with Abbey and the other VIPs. Josh is being so unJoshlike, I'm starting to wonder about an alien invasion. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, whatever. Do I look like a B-movie buff?
We're both winding down and I indicate that I'm going to the ladies' room and then I'll be ready to go.
When I re-enter the bar, I see that Abbey has Josh by his tie, speaking emphatically to him about something. She's drawn quite a crowd, Josh is blushing, stammering and staring at his shoes. Whatever she's saying to him is something he doesn't want to hear, but agrees with.
I save Josh from further humiliation and we say our farewells. As we leave the bar, he offers me his jacket for the walk back to the car. I'm not that cold, but I love wearing his clothes, so I accept.
"Feel like ice cream?" he asks, opening the car door for me.
What the hell? I'm more confused than ever, so I just nod.
He stops at this little Mom and Pop ice cream parlor in a couple of blocks from his place in Georgetown. I thought I had scoped out every ice cream joint within walking distance of his apartment, evidently I missed one.
"It's new," he says, channeling Miss Cleo. "They just opened last week."
I let him get the door for me. We order and sit down at one of those tiny, two person tables.
"What was Dr. Bartlet laying into you about?"
He's fiddling with his ice cream.
"She wanted to know just how stupid I am."
The blush is back.
"Stupid?"
"Yeah."
"Meddlers."
People think we're blind to the attraction. *Buzz* wrong answer. It's pretty much right there in front of us. We've been dancing around it for years. Occasionally, we'll get drunk and talk about what a bad idea it would be. We've got an informal agreement: we both date gomers with whom we have no future.
When it doesn't seem like a bad idea anymore, the us-thing will happen.
I pick at my chocolate delight and sigh.
He sets his down and looks me in the eyes. "Tell me again why we're a bad idea."
Somehow, when I'm sober and he's asking that, the reasons don't seem so important.
"I can't remember."
He's invading my space. He's invading my space. He's Oh my god! He's a really good kisser.
It's gentle and soft, no tongues, no insistence, no urgency and it lasts an eternity.
"I should take you home," he says softly, breaking the kiss.
"Yeah."
He drives me home, to my apartment, and walks me to my front door.
"I had a really good time tonight, Donna."
I'm not sure what to say or do here. He's leaning against the wall, holding my hand, gently rubbing his thumb across the back of it.
"Thanks for inviting yourself along."
I settle for the teasing tone and banter.
He takes a deep breath and exhales before responding. "Donna, the last thing in the world I want to do is push you. Just think about it. If you decide it's still a bad idea, then it's still a bad idea. If not, then," he pauses to shrug insecurely. "If not, then we'll take it slow. For both of us."
"I'll see you in the morning, Josh." It's out of my mouth before I can stop it, sounding callous and uncaring. I lean towards him and kiss him on the cheek to soften the words.
"Goodnight, Donnatella."
"Goodnight, Joshua."