C is for Campbells Soup (Jed / Abbey)

Sex, Soup, and Artistic Snobbery

"Well," Jed Bartlet stood back, eyeing the artwork on the wall critically, "I think becoming First Lady has gone to your head." He turned to look at his wife, peering at her over the top of his glasses, "I think the whole pomp and ceremony of the inauguration has sent you completely insane." It had to have done, it was the only way he could explain the eyesore in front of him. "For the love of God Abigail what is this?"

Abbey gave him her patented sulky look. "You know full well what it is. Its art."

He rolled his eyes, becoming increasingly frustrated with her, "Abbey, it's thirty two pictures of tins of soup."

"JED!" she threw her hands up in the air, clearly getting as irritated by him as he was getting by her, "It's Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Tins. The originals. As lent to us for our shiny and white new home by the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York. At my request."

"How kind of them." He retorted, "Do you think they'd be so kind as to take it back again? At mine?" He shook his head despairingly, "Honestly Abbey, when I heard that we got to take our pick from the National Archives, I had hoped you'd come back with something a bit more classic. A Manet maybe, a Renoir, you know, something we could brag to the folks back home about."

"I'll be bragging about this back home." Abbey snarled, stepping in front of the monstrosity protectively. "And you, Josiah, are an artistic snob." Her words prompted a memory in him and suddenly, he couldn't help but laugh.

"You did this on purpose."

Abbey winked, her anger apparently fading away, as a beam spread across her face. "You bet I did. You know why?"

He moved closer to her, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her body tightly up against his, "We've seen this piece of 'art' before. In that gallery in LA. On our honeymoon. It prompted our first row as man and wife."

She looked up at him, a sassy look in her eyes, "And our first make up sex."

He kept hold of her, but turned his head to look at the Warhol again before turning his attention back to her, "You're a philistine."

She grinned, then repeated her earlier line, "And you're an artistic snob."

Two minutes later, and with an audience of thirty two soup cans, they were having sex.

xxx

"Did you get me a Renoir too?"

It was an hour later. They were cuddled up, each half dressed in the outfit he'd been wearing at the kick off, him the trousers, she the shirt. Their bodies were entwined, and they were both exhausted. As make up sex went, it had been lengthy and energetic. At his question, she smiled and then nodded. "Of course, and a Manet too. But," she said, adding a proviso, "The soup tins stay."

He glanced up at the piece of art once again, then leant in, and kissed her.

"Abigail, I wouldn't have it any other way."