The first time was completely innocent, I swear.

We were sitting in a meeting with some pencil-necked mouth-breather from DNC accounting, and Donna was going off on some tangent or other that plumbed the depths of her frightening capacity to store minutiae in the RAM of her brain, when I noticed -- completely innocently -- that her shirt was riding up as a result of her impassioned gesticulations. A patch of the bare skin of her waist was revealed not only to me and the four other staffers in the room, but to the mouth-breather as well, and don't think I didn't see him notice. Without really thinking about it I reached over and tugged her shirt back into place, and my fingers may have incidentally brushed against her exposed skin when I did so. Completely innocent, like I said.

Besides, the startled look she gave me made it all worthwhile. Plus she stopped her babbling, so, double score.

And it threw the mouth-breather off his game to the point that I was able to steamroll him on the remaining expense allocations, which means -- I am the master. All hail.

The problem, now -- and I guess I am willing to admit that to a certain extent, it is, indeed a problem -- is that as soon as I touched her that first time, I wanted to do it again. Really, really badly. I think it's just that I had been without that particular touch for so long -- I'm not a super touchy person, but I have been known to engage in the occasional tactile gesture, and going without touching Donna -- well, it's not something you ever want to be without. Now that I'd finally had another taste I was like an addict with a drug. I had to have even more. The junkie of my soul needed a fix.

But it's not as easy as you might think to find perfectly innocent excuses to touch someone, even when you're a world-renowned political strategist such as myself.

Sometimes it worked, just like it was supposed to. Oops, I'm sorry I tripped over that wastebasket and had to grab onto you for support. Uh oh, this hallway is really crowded, please don't mind me as I brush up against you, there, Donna. And hey, you had some shmutz on your sleeve, that's the only reason I ran my hand over your arm, I swear.

There were other times, though, especially in the beginning, when she glared at me in a way that made my balls want to crawl into my abdomen and hide, so, you know, not so much.

And then there were other, different times --

And that's the weird thing. When she wasn't glaring at me, I'm pretty sure she was encouraging me. She'd smile, or laugh, or -- and these were the best times -- she'd lean into the touch, let it linger, which meant my attentions weren't completely unwanted. Even I could figure that out.

And so, much to my surprise, what started out solely as my own lecherous machinations slowly became an ongoing game of mutual participation instead. We'd always manage to find an excuse to stand next to each other at crowded rallies, or sit next to each other at hastily-consumed dinners in hotel restaurants. Life didn't get much better than having a beer in my hand and Donna's leg pressing against mine. If anyone on staff noticed, they didn't say anything about it. I have to assume they had better things to worry about than my tactile habits, and if they didn't, I needed to find more for them to do because clearly they weren't working hard enough.

We never outright acknowledged to each other what we were doing -- like I said, it was a game. If we actually confronted what was going on between us, I kind of felt like it wouldn't be fun anymore. Once you confront things, that's when everything starts going south, in my experience. I embrace myopic uncertainty. I found comfort (and something more) in her touch, and she in mine, and it was so great to have that again that fucking it up wasn't even an option. At least not yet.

And so it was with supreme confidence that it wouldn't affect things one way or the other that I asked Donna to accompany me to some shindig being held by the New York Teachers Association in support of the Santos/McGarry ticket. Staying on Ernie Gambelli's good side as we hurtled headlong toward the election was a must, so I had to accept his invitation. I figured that bringing along Donna, who was likable and got along with everyone she met, would be a plus. She's an expert at filling in the gaps in my social education.

When I informed her that she'd be going with me, her only response was to request that we stay anyplace other than the Hotel Pennsylvania (if you ever go to New York, do not, I repeat do not, stay at the Hotel Pennsylvania if you value your sanity and your self-worth), so I figured it was pretty clear that this was strictly business, albeit maybe with some of that causal touching stuff thrown in for good measure.

The night of the party I made my way down to the lobby of the Grand Hyatt that sits over Grand Central Station to meet Donna. It wasn't a formal event, thank God, so I was just dressed in a dark blue suit and one of my better ties. Teachers don't have any money, so wearing something flashy was a surefire way to alienate them right off the bat. Mandy learned that the hard way the first time she wore Versace to an NEA function. Damn, that had been funny. The dress had been fucking hot, though, and slipped off really easily at the end of the night...

I saw Donna standing near the reception desk and killed all thoughts of Mandy in her underwear for the moment. Donna, who had also learned from Mandy's mistake, was dressed in a regular black dress (that neckline probably had some girly type name but damned if I know these things) and heels that thankfully weren't so high that she'd be taller than me. As I walked closer to her my gaze was drawn by a band of gold around her upper arm. It gleamed in the harsh light of the lobby.

"Hey," I said. "You ready?"

"Yeah." She tugged self-consciously on her dress. "Will I pass muster with the teachers?"

"You look fine," I said. "What's that thing on your arm?"

She glanced down at it involuntarily and smiled a small smile. "They call it a cuff, I guess. It used to be my mother's. Of course, she referred to it as a 'slave bracelet,' which is embarrassingly un-p.c., so I just call it a cuff and be done with it. Why, does it look bad? Is it too much?"

"No," I said, but my mouth was disconnected from my brain, which had gone into a tailspin at the notion of Donna wearing something called a "slave bracelet," political correctness be damned. You're a Democrat, for crying out loud, I told myself silently. Don't be turned on don't be turned on...shit. I stuck my hands in my pockets. "Ah, we better go," I said, clearing my throat.

She gave me an odd look, but said "Okay," and we went out the front door and had the doorman hail us a cab. It was a relatively quick ride uptown to the venue, and I sat a little further away from Donna in the backseat than I might have ordinarily because I was still, well, let's just say...indisposed. When we arrived at the party things had, uh, settled down a bit, thank god.

Inside, Gambelli was in his glory and the drinks were open bar. Donna and I pressed the flesh for a while, and if after a few drinks my hand occasionally strayed to the middle of her back, it didn't seem to bother anyone, least of all her. I wasn't touching bare skin or anything, as she was demurely covered up for the sake of the teachers, so it was nothing more than flesh against -- well, against whatever Donna's dress was made out of. Who do I look like, Calvin Klein?

Things only progressed down a dangerous course from there. I'm not sure whether it was the booze that made me touch her more often, or the touching her that made me drink more. Either way, the result was the same: by the end of the evening we were both a little unsteady on our feet, and leaning on each other in a very literal way, shoulder pressing against shoulder, hip against hip. In the middle of one particularly intent conversation with some superintendent from the Bronx, I felt Donna's hand brush against mine, then grasp it. I squeezed her hand with mine to make sure she realized what she was doing in her tipsy state, but all she did was squeeze my hand back and lean in a little closer to me. I was suddenly having a very difficult time continuing my current conversation.

"Would you excuse me for a minute?" I said to the superintendent whose name I had already forgotten, and pulled Donna over to a corner of the room.

"What are you doing?" I asked. I hadn't let go of her hand.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I think you've had enough to drink," I said. "Why don't you let me take you back to the hotel." Being drunk was the only explanation I could think of for why she would be holding my hand in public, which of course wasn't enough reason for me to actually let go.

"I'm fine," she said, her brow furrowing. "Why, am I acting drunk?" Her tone sharpened, and I started to think I might be in trouble.

"No," I said quickly. "It's just..."

"Because I hold my liquor better than you do, Josh, and I think we both know that."

"I know," I said, trying for placating.

"Unless," she said, and her expression changed, and she took a step closer to me, and dammit, she was still holding my hand, "it's just that you want to take me back to the hotel."

What the hell?

"Do you want to do that, Josh? Do you want to take me back to the hotel?" Her voice took on a husky quality I had never heard before, and we won't examine too closely what it did to certain parts of my anatomy.

"Donna --" My free hand touched her arm, her shoulder, but my mouth was having difficulty forming words.

"It's just us, Josh, just us staying at that sterile, expensive hotel, and I'm feeling good, and I like the way you smell, and I'm tired of pretending," she said. "Aren't you tired of pretending?"

I couldn't think of any way to answer that question that wouldn't leave me completely vulnerable, so I didn't say anything at all. I was still waiting for her to tell me she was having a joke at my expense.

She leaned in and placed a small kiss at the very corner of my mouth, and it wasn't funny at all. Her lips were warm and wet against my skin. "You make up your mind, Josh. I'm going to go freshen up." She pulled away from me completely and headed for the ladies' room.

"I'll wait here," I managed to squeak when she was already gone.

Before she returned I was dragged into a conversation with a petite young teacher who I had a sneaking suspicion had a picture of me tacked to her wall next to a pull-out from Tiger Beat. She couldn't have been more than 23, 24, and the way she was looking at me was something that on another night I might have welcomed wholeheartedly, but with the way Donna was acting...

"Did I miss anything?" came Donna's voice in my ear, right on cue.

"Not at all," I said, and cleared my throat. "This is, uh, Katie, right?"

Katie nodded and looked Donna up and down. "Katie McArdle, P.S. 22."

Donna slipped her arm around my waist. "Nice to meet you, Katie. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to steal Josh away from you for a moment. Urgent campaign business."

"Oh, of course," Katie said, an excited sparkle in her eyes. "Anything for the Congressman."

"I hope we can count on your vote," I managed to say before Donna steered me away.

Halfway to the door she pulled me to a stop and looked up at me. "So did you make up your mind?" she asked. Her blue eyes glittered with something that looked an awful lot like nervousness. I could try to tell myself it was desire, but -- nervousness seemed a lot more likely.

So, instead of answering her question, I asked one of my own. "Are you sure about this?"

"Josh." She stepped closer to me; I could feel her breath on my skin. "Do you...do you want me?"

"Yes," I blurted out, before I could take it back. It was her wanting me that was throwing me off my game.

"Then I'm sure," she said. She took my hand again, and we made our way outside, down the steps to the sidewalk. I put up my arm to hail a cab, but Donna tugged it back down. "Josh."

"What?"

"Kiss me."

I looked over at her. "What?"

Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips. "I think...I think our first kiss should be right here, under the stars, not in a seedy hotel room."

"That seedy hotel room costs over $250 a night."

"You know what I mean." She crossed her arms in front of her chest, her thumb brushing against the gold of her sla-- cuff. Christ that was hot.

"Okay," I said, my voice sounding hoarse to my ears. I took a step closer to her. "Now?"

She nodded and tilted her face up to mine. "Yeah."

"Okay," I repeated. I gently brushed her cheek with my thumb. Her skin was smooth, soft. Her eyes were dark. And her lips were waiting.

I lowered my mouth to hers and thrilled at that initial gentle pressure of her lips against mine. It was enough to stay that way for a long moment, lips pressing against lips, and then she opened her mouth to me and my tongue slipped inside, finding hers, caressing and probing and tasting. Her arms came up around my neck and I pulled her closer with one arm on her waist, and my free hand flat against her cheek. Our lips parted briefly and then met again, the kiss growing more urgent, until a little voice in the back of my head started screaming for us to stop before we made idiots out of ourselves.

"We should go," I said finally, breathing hard against her mouth. "If someone recognizes us --"

"Yeah," she said. "Okay."

I hailed a cab and followed Donna into the backseat, where we sat as close together as we could without actually climbing into each other's laps. Her hand rested on my knee and I had my arm draped over her shoulders. We didn't speak, didn't kiss, didn't do any of those things. We just sat, together, and reveled in the simple joy of touch.

End.