Writers are always encouraged to write "what if . . .."
With that in mind, I decided to write a flash fiction piece about me and George W. Bush having a brief affair.
An Affair to Forget
Binx met W in Crawford. She was passing through, on a road trip where she stopped at Southern diners, ate their fries, then blogged about the experience. It was mid-afternoon, and the diner was empty. W came in with a secret service team. The boys were hungry. They ordered pot pies, shakes and apple pie. W set across the diner. Binx thought he was making eyes at her, but she couldn't tell. His eyes were too close together. He was either looking at her, or looking at her beer. She decided to test the situation. She raised the bottle to her lips and looked at W. Sure enough, he was looking at the beer.
She wiggled the bottle in his direction, and he walked over. "Mind if I join you," he asked.
Binx was sure he was looking at the beer, not her.
She motioned to the waitress, "Dos," she said.
"Oh I couldn't," he said.
"Kinda like you couldn't make the right decision on stem cell research?"
W looked confused. Had she just insulted him? No one had ever done that before. Who was this strange girl? Was she, could she be, no, it wasn't possible . . . was she a terrorist? Or was she just one of those annoying Democrats? He studied her face. She had a long nose. Ah. That explains it. She was French.
The waitress came and put the beer down. "They'll see me," W said, referring to the Secret Service.
"I'll divert their attention."
Binx walked to the middle of the diner, stood on a table, and started chanting "F^&! You, Mr. Cheney! F^&! You!"
The Secret Service were on her like W alone in a booth with a beer.
Later, W made sure she was released from jail and invited her over to ranch. Laura was away, doing something useful with her time. "How can I repay you?" he asked, the smell of Miller heavy on his breath.
"Let me show you, Neocon boy," she said.
It was awful, but she had a greater purpose. As she predicted, he left in the middle of the night, abruptly ending his Crawford vacation for a Camp David vacation.
Three months later she got the news. She leaked it, of course. Then she went down to Planned Parenthood and walked past the throngs of right-to-life protestors. She went into a sterile little procedure room and later, when it was all done, she told the press about her experience.
"Hah," she said to W when he confronted her. "Your reputation is ruined. I've exposed you for what you are and put you in the middle of a scandal."
"Hah back," he said. "You may have proved it, but it's an election late and a lot of funding short. I got re-elected in 2004. Damage is already done. I've ruined my own reputation."
"Oh hell," Binx said. She hadn't been thinking clearly. It was her perimenopause, which caused fuzzy thinking, but unfortunately, didn't stop women from getting pregnant. W was right, the damage had already been done. She had wasted her time and efforts on nothing.
She lived out the rest of her days in a cramped apartment in Bakersfield that sat behind a Burger King. She got fat on fries and lived out her life watching reruns of Gilmore Girls. The end.
Note from writer: my stories never have happy endings.
