Harsh D.c.

I usually don't interject myself into other people's business or trysts, but tonight I need Eboni and Darla -- not Rich.

Weird stuff I have often imagined, but never really believed, unfolds before my eyes in a prominent hotel bar less than one mile from my temporary office in the Pentagon.

A middle-aged very moneyed-looking smallish man with thinning white hair and what once must have been piercing blue eyes and his 32ish year-old-wife are joined by a beautiful 27ish-year-old golden ebony goddess.

'Guess.' I'll call her 'Guess,' because it's stitched into her jeans, just below where the green tattoo on her taut beckoning back flesh peers out between her thin black belt and her gapped top.

No. 'Guess' needs a full name. I want to call her Eboni Guess, Ebi. It fits better.

Eboni Guess is a stunning African American beauty sitting seven feet and six inches from the tip of my pen and is talking about Obama's policies on everything from health care reform to his new troop buildup in Afghanistan. She cites, with full references and from memory, every reason each policy may succeed, and every reason each may fail. All the while her dark chocolate eyes flash and her glossy lips wrap around each syllable like a snake around a mouse, like tongue around tiramisu, depending upon whether one is friend or prey.

Eboni is going to fuck Rich's wife while he watches. The ladies have already started in fact with the finger touching, posture leaning, perfume blending, warm-up play.

Rich may get it up after his $12.50 Bubbly Passion, but I doubt it.

Darla, however, is definitely up for Ebi.

Darla wears a Russian fur hat, drinks Louis Jadot, Pouilly, France. She drinks her Louis by the glass, not the bottle, enough to get happy and keep her shiny lips wet like Ebi's are, but not too much wine to lose touch with her looming long night Ebi experience.

I don't need Rich. He is irrelevant. I usually don't interject myself into other people's trysts or business, but tonight I need Eboni and Darla -- not Rich.

I am out of patience. I start by reaching for my water and spilling it all over the table and down over the chair and onto the floor. Darla and Eboni turn from each other and from Rich to see what the clatter is, annoyance and disdain their first expressions, then more respect and tacit unsolicited approval when they measure the operator frame and steel eyes attached to the guy that caused the clatter. So far so good.

They forget Mr. Rich immediately and ponder, individually and together in whispered questions, Mr. Asshole, jeans and motorcycle boots, working class guy in the wrong hotel restaurant, but here nonetheless and obviously here for something other than to rope cattle or build fences on the range. Maybe in some earlier part of life, but this phase of life obviously entails more complicated matters than stretching barbed wire between mesquite posts.

I look FUCK into Darla's eyes first, then I look FUCK into Eboni's eyes. My disdain orders me to just do it. Don't bat an eye.

Okay, they reply with eye.

Ignore, ignore, corners of eyes flashing my way, ignore, whisper to each other, whisper to Mr. Rich, whispers again, then more direct eye contact my direction; don't worry girls, Rich is all but disappeared into his drink. He doesn't have his dick any more.

It's my dick tonight or it's just pussy for both of you tonight. Your call.

"My call?" Darla asks herself, sizing up my mismatched jeans, my Harley boots, my UnderArmor light-sweat smelly from the long day tee-shirt. "My call?"

Okay Darla's eyes say.

Whisper to Ebi. Whisper to Rich (to not much avail judging from his glassy eyes). Darla's and Ebi's eyes flash at each other, hands touch knees, hair cascades into hair as heads confirm and bob. Then Darla comes over.

Darla takes the scant seven steps to my dinner of Italian sausage pizza and a short rib slider. Yes, I said a short rib slider -- please. To go with my Monacacy Ash (Maryland), Appalachian (Virginia), and Grayson (Virginia) cheese plate and Patron shot. Darla sums up my meal in disbelief and compares it to my abs.

Darla sums up my Tequila shot and compares it to my eyes. She purses her lips in half surprise, half disgust, all approval.

"Interesting meal Cowboy." Darla invites.

"You want my cock in your ass," I say, my blinkless eyes into her blinkless eyes.

"Very good. Nice, Cowboy," she says, eyes sparkling, lips twisted in reluctant respect. "so don't fuck it up."

"I don't have to fuck it up, Darla," I say into her smirk. "It's already way too fucked up for words. It's my fuck up to lose."

Darla's eyes disappear into her head for a second, summing something up.

Eboni looks a little uncomfortable, seven feet away. She shoots a furtive glance at Rich, who looks the question at Darla. The goon waiter near the door stands a little straighter and sets down his tray, tugging his belt loops. Only an idiot wouldn't see the 9 millimeter bulge beneath his jacket tugging his short black vest buttons tighter.

"Get a real gun, Brutus," I lip synch across the room straight into his snarling eyes. He reads every word I mouth at him and shakes his head like he wants to break my head.

"Smile yes at Rich, Darla," I say. "That is, if you want anything but pussy tonight. And so Brutus over there can get his panties out of a wad and look for trouble elsewhere."

Darla bites back in her throat the chuckle that bubbles out of her eyes.

She smiles and winks back at Rich and Ebi, setting them and Brutus the waiter goon at peace for the time being.

"Jackie," she says a name, extending her heavily diamonded hand. "But Darla was a great guess. I'll use it in the next life. If, that is, I haven't already used it in some other life. And, well, shit, if it is indeed Jackie in this life. Jackie sounds so...so...presidential don't you think?"

"Self-righteous Sam I'm guessing?"

I almost jump in surprise for the first time in months - but keep the surprise out of my eyes. I am nobody. Nobody at all. And I am not from this Washington scene anyway. I spend most of my time these days in foreign lands, closer to where Eboni grew up.

"Sam, yeah." Sullenly I speak so's to not let my eyes betray my surprise.

"Fuck you too, Sam." Darla walks to her table, retrieves more wine, finger-strokes Ebi's knee, and saunters back over.

"As I was saying - fuck you Sam. You think you are better than us, better than anybody in D.C. because you are younger, you are southwestern, and you are considerably poorer than Ed (but Rich was a great guess; maybe he was a 'Rich' in another life, but who knows?) - and you think you're superior simply because you are poor?! And, yes, you always will be poorer than 'Rich.' Big fucking deal. Being broke and young (for now) makes you superior." She scoffs and drinks wine. "Funny how you confuse power and money and morality.

"You have us so pegged don't you? You think you're too good for success, or money or professional sex, but you're really just too confused and restless and too fucking spaced-out with Attention Deficit Disorder to make or keep any money and too afraid of yourself to enjoy gourmet fucking. That will bite you in the ass someday, Sam. Nice as that ass is right now.

"So," she sums up her sneer sermon, "Know for certain that you are judging Ed wrong," she southern-accents her words to mock me.

"Rich," I say, "His name is Rich."

"Close, Sam. But, as I said, but unfortunately, tonight his name is Ed. I realize the facts mean little to you -- I just say this to give your danger intuitions, clouded as they are right now by mine and Ebi's asses, plenty of head start. Think Ed for a few moments before you fuck this up.

"Sam," she sips slowly, "Ed found Castro's main stateside drug connections and their headquarters the same week of the last time he fucked me in the ass. Ed was your age then."

Darla pins fire eyes to the back of my skull.

"So, Ghengis Texas Ranger Khan, uh, what exactly have you done -- lately?"

She pats my leg.

"Never mind. Too easy to find out, and we wouldn't have anything to talk about over breakfast, then would we?"

"I've done nothing really -- yet." I answer her honestly, working hard to not appear as interrupted as I am by her well-justified verbal barrage. "Truth is, Darla, I haven't done anything with my life - yet."

"Then, Sam. Why don't you fucking grow up and show up? Room 1575. If you want my ass that is. You may be surprised how well that could work."

She turns askance, dragging my glance with her to look at Eboni, seven feet away.

"One thing you have going for you is that you see the beauty and the passion in Eboni -- it's Ebi isn't it? You have indeed come a long way from bumfuck West Texas."

Darla drops a room key into my potatoes.

"You'll never show up. You're too fucking predictable. Too full of yourself. You're a dime a dozen. You disrespect white hair and young ass together. As though we need Ed, or as though Ed needs us. You'll go jerk off in your room - but not because you're really too good for my ass. You'll jerk off in your room because you're scared.

"You're scared of so many things I really don't have time to list them all. But for starters, even though you're pretty sure you can take Brutus the waiter watch-out guy and all his buddies -- and your record says you could do that without any trouble -- still, you know who Brutus works for, and you know he's just the tip of the iceberg, and you'd really rather talk a tough game than really mix it up and take a chance that you could fight your way through all the thugs into the big time world stage - to public service life pay dirt. You know you'd win this little bar room battle -- but you, my friend, will lose every war you engage until you fucking grow up and respect other people."

Lowering or diverting my eyes in any direction would be a mistake right now -- and it wouldn't match my desperate honesty efforts.

So Darla once again brands fire eyes through my retinas and tacks them with a Bowie knife onto the back wall of my brain.

"Furthermore," she goes on after a slow tongue-taste of wine, "you are afraid to let go of your little drama, your tough cowboy movie image, and let yourself go into something nice and good and right -- something like inside Eboni and me -- and...just...enjoy it for what it is. It's just fucking sex, Sam. You're old enough for sex now - although you seem awfully immature for your age.

"You can't get through that moral façade you picked up in your Sunday school. You can fight, you can kill when you must, but you can't let go and give yourself over to a couple of decent, very willing women, more than happy to oblige -- much as you'd like to believe you can.

"So, Sam, you'll jerk off to the idea. Not tonight. Oh, heavens no, you won't jerk off tonight! You'll be too chagrined from our little chat here to even look at your cock tonight. But when you've recovered in a day or two and written Ebi and Rich and me and the Washington insiders off to being less than you -- then you'll jerk off to my memory, instead of trying on the real me - whatever my name is tonight."

"You're getting close to the real thing, Cowboy. Real close to the real thing. Closer to so many things you have no idea about. Close, but not there yet."

* * *

I walk right into room 1575 like it's mine and I drop Darla's key on the table, potatoes intact on the serrated edges.

No surprise flashes across Darla's face, nor Ebi's, nor Rich's, nor mine.

Darla is spread wide on the king size luxury bed , Eboni is perched on her elbows between Darla's legs, lips moistened with exactly the same moistness that Darla's bottom is moistened with.

Rich sits back near the bed in the rolling desk chair, sedate as the Buddha, same smile as in the bar, watching like an artist, using his eyes to feel Eboni's slowly gyrating ass as she leisurely licked Darla's pussy

"Move back," I say.

He does.

"I like you," Rich says, his eyes far more clear and discerning than they appeared downstairs.

"I don't like you at all, Rich," I say.

"Then I like you even better," Rich says evenly.

I look into piercing eyes, feel his youth surge through his expressions like cards shuffling in the hands of a Vegas dealer. I feel his age and his youth, his wins and his losses, his achievements and his near misses melt together in a calm centered essence.

He watches his wife and her lover enjoy themselves. He tolerates and admires whatever good there might be in this brash young man with conflicted raging impulses, barely contained and constrained by his intense operator discipline and exertions.

And through my tequila and my ancient angst, I find myself saying, "I like you better now old man."

Rich beams at me and makes no objection as I use my booted foot to slide his plush chair back away from the bed until it slams into the wall with a thud.

"Now that's what I'm talking about," Eboni says, nodding with conviction. "Where do you want me, Cowboy?"

"Right here," Darla says, patting the plush pillows she has stacked up against the headboard. "Forget where he wants you. Right fucking here's where I want you -- spread."

Darla is on her knees in a flash. She burrows into Eboni's bottom and inhales her like she's hosting a wine tasting debutante party.

As she tastes and tempts at Ebi's cunt, Darla moves her ass and cunt in ever-widening flesh circles, opening to the air, opening for my inquisition.

Punishment she expects, pleasure is what I punish her with.

I enter her quickly, because I am starved, but I do so delicately because I care.

Darla senses my gentle hunger and she turns and looks her surprise over her shoulder at my tender entry into her body.

Eboni notices it. Rich notices it.

Yes, of course I slide deliberately into her pussy first, several times, feeling her scalding woman warmth, measuring her hunger, comparing it to mine, measuring her wantonness with both of us knowing instinctively her ass would be tonight's story.

My imagination has dared her. Hers has accepted.

I plumb Darla's depths a few times slowly and fully, letting myself feel again for the first time since I was that seventeen-year-old with Sarah in the back of the old Ford station wagon.

I scoop Darla up around her firm mid-section and I set her to the side like a sack of seed so I can plunge myself deep into Eboni's body, soaked already from Darla's mouth and Ebi's own raging lust. Eboni yelps like a pup and lifts her ass high, thrusting her heels deep into the mattress to meet my plunging cock full strength.

Darla moans her approval then positions herself better to take the alternate strokes from my cock, patiently bating me with her ass. Fingering all possible orifices during Ebi's turns at my penetrations.

Rich settles back to enjoy his life and to soak in this experience and enjoy the show, my dare and Darla's acceptance.

* * *

A yellow handwritten note with words, numbers and dashes rustles at my feet when I open my hotel door at five the next morning to head to the airport, carefully looking both ways down the halls before I take my hand off my weapon.

I hear Darla's voice speaking the words in my head as I read:

Sam (you're not Sam, but you're Sam to me). These coordinates will lead precisely to the point where Osama Bin Laden either sits wasting away as a political has-been, or where his bones or ashes are piled. You suspected Pakistan didn't you?

Grow up Sam.

Politics. All politics. Always politics.

Pakistan has vested interests that impact our vested interests in how this plays out -- and how it is released to the world press. But Pakistan isn't the only country with a vested interest in breaking this to the world in a good light. Think - closer...

You said you haven't done anything with your life yet. Well. Here's your chance. Your call. You choose. You will disappear under a new identity if you choose. In any case, Ed-Rich-Ed-Rich (you choose) has done worlds of good for this country his whole professional life; he is done with the limelight. He is done with the work and posturing and diplomacy it will take to spring this to the world. He only wants to put Bin Laden to bed.

And more importantly, at this point in life, Sam, he just wants me and Eboni.

And Sam...don't you ever underestimate Rich. Even though Rich has more money than he'll ever need, Rich isn't rich because he has money.

Rich is rich because he has...me.

Love,

"Darla"

(North Dallas High School, class of 1980-ish)

Catch us for the reunion.

* * *

I step back to the window overlooking Pentagon City and the pronged monument at the base of the Pentagon annex. I check Darla's coordinates and they look genuine and astonishingly plausible.

I whistle between my teeth, genuinely shocked, and I head out the door to the metro station back to the Pentagon for a quick impromptu meeting there instead of directly to the airport, certain for the first time in my life where I am going in harsh D.C. world.