Chapter 23: The Closeted Influencer

Ted had arranged for two days of leave, allowing him to ride with Tess on the way back to DC. Therefore, the first stage to Sioux City saw mostly Holly and Eileen at the wheel. After spending a very short four hours at Holly’s, Tess and Ted continued alone for the remainder of the long trip. Tess had to concede that going by car was stupid, but she justified it with finding a deserving lover for Eileen. Ted agreed to that, after witnessing three days of over-the-moon, lovey-dovey antics by the two women. He expressed his doubt that Eileen would ever return to Philadelphia, and Tess could not challenge his assessment.

They spelled each other every two hours, with one of them driving and the other at least snoozing, and shortly before midnight, Monday, they arrived at Tess’s apartment and sacked out in her bed. They had the Tuesday to sleep in, and they did, skipping breakfast in favor of some serious lovemaking, before loading the washer in the basement with their washable clothes and dropping the rest off at a dry cleaner.

They woke on Wednesday morning bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to go to their respective workplaces, but not before a last quickie in the shower. Thus recuperated and well satisfied, a very even-tempered and relaxed Tess entered HQ to continue her work, protecting the chief executive.

She was met there by a grinning Sondra.

“How was your queer wedding?”

“Fun, for the most part,” Tess answered. “It was good to see some of the old gang. How are things going here?”

“Just fine. POTUS is still alive even with you gone over the weekend.”

“Balls! That from you?”

“Yeah, I know. I just couldn’t resist. We have the evening shift today, but we’ll do indoor rounds in the East Wing.”

“Sniffing empty offices and bathrooms?”

“You got it, Sister. At least we don’t have to tote the heavy artillery.”

“There is that. What is the alert level?”

“Normal. We have to be there this morning to get our briefing on the procedures.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’s kinda embarrassing for both sides if you enter a bathroom where one of those nerd staffers is polishing his salami.”

“Oi! I can do without that image in my head.”

“You and me both. That’s why we go over there and learn how to avoid it.”

An hour later, they and two other agents were given a tour through the White House by one of the SSAs, a woman by the name of Collins, no first name mentioned. She acquainted them with the procedures, not only how to enter occupied bathrooms, but also who on the President’s staff held any authority over the Secret Service detail. Tess had gone through the latter during her PD training, but the refresher was useful.

There were also repairs going on — constantly — by carefully screened contractors, but those had very limited access to specific areas only. SSA Collins also harped on the fact that the numerous volunteers and interns needed constant watching, for they were apt to forget or ignore security issues. Lastly, no private cellphones were allowed in the building. Those who needed to make calls had to use their government issue smartphones or the landline phones. Outside the visitors’s areas, no photography was allowed, save for the official photographer.

Lastly, the two teams were both split up, with the individual agents making their rounds with seasoned agents who would show them the ropes. They were then told to show up with full personal gear at 1530 for the 1600 to 2400 shift and dismissed until then.

Tess and Sondra spent the next four hours with a short stroll and a light lunch at The Cheesecake Factory on H Street. After that they got coffees and sat on a bench near the Washington Monument — Sondra produced her knitting kit — until it was time for them to show up for their shift.

Tess was paired with a mid-thirties agent named Marc Edmonds, and together, they stationed themselves in the corridor to the East Wing, controlling access to the offices there. Of course, all the staffers were openly wearing the mandatory ID tags, except for a young male who had taken it off in a bathroom and forgotten to pin it back on afterwards. Edmonds admonished the staffer to keep to the regulations and radioed the incident in. That was it. After 6 pm, the traffic in the corridor dwindled as staffers had left their offices for the evening, and for the next hours until midnight, the hours crept along at a snail’s pace. More than once that evening, Tess longed for a posting in a small, provincial field office, visiting idiots and collecting counterfeit money from store owners and small banks.

After shift change, she found Sondra, and together they found their cars in the allotted spaces for the drive home. There, Tess sent a short message to Ted, advising him of her new schedule, and crept under the covers for some much needed sleep.

After a week, Tess was paired with another male agent, Robert Kearns, a far more outgoing man than Edmonds. He was doing his last weeks of working in protection and would soon join the Atlanta field office. That did not mean that he was getting sloppy; far from it. No screw-ups during his last days in DC! He would be made SSA in Atlanta, and he was not going to risk that. Tess learned quite a lot from him, not just procedural, but also about the in-house politics and fault lines and how to avoid pissing off the wrong people.

After a few shifts during office times, she also got to know a few of the staffers, mostly from making use of the same coffee machines. She was also hit on by a few over confident guys with illusions of grandeur, who tried to dazzle her with their perceived importance. By then, Tess had learned to rebuke would-be Romeos with an incredulous look and a pitiful shake of her head, but one guy, an arrogant little prick, tried to grab her arm, and landed flat on his face. There were security cams all over the place, of course, and the miscreant spent three days in remedial sensitivity training.

Tess expected another talk with SAC Chang, but nobody seemed to give a damn about preppy boy’s face plant. Kearns told her later that Chang had watched the security footage, but only for recreational purposes. She also garnered respect from her fellow agents for the resolute takedown. Still, she was already getting a bit weary of the place.

With Kearns, she was posted in the corridor leading to the West Wing where all the big shots reside. Here, nobody ever forgot to pin the ID cards, which proclaimed their lofty titles, to their lapels. They all seemed to know Kearns, and in his last week on duty, quite a number of them made certain to shake his hand and wish him well. He was nice enough to introduce Tess to those executives, always mentioning her Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor, which fact some staffers even remembered. One of them, it was the Naval Aide to the President, a full USN Captain no less, even made a point of shaking her hand, but most just acknowledged her with a nod, which was okay for Tess.

When, a few days later, Kearns left for Alabama, Tess and Sondra were paired again, deemed sufficiently trained by that time. Of course, they were worked into the East Wing rotation, where the peons and odd people worked in their rather stressful but unrewarding jobs. Here, nobody was friendly to them, regarding them as little more than security goons. Tess took this philosophically, but Sondra, still less self-confident, was steamed sometimes, cursing under her breath.

Still, their first week as team went without any incidents, and they had three free days from Sunday to Tuesday. Sondra planned to visit her family, but Tess had urgent plans involving Ted. For three days, they played house, with Tess dropping him off at school and picking him up afterwards on Monday and Tuesday. They even cooked for themselves, with varying success, but also having fun doing it.

Tuesday evening, after having prepared another meat loaf, Tess served Ted and herself and sat down opposite her lover. Clearly, the polpettone, was the best effort of their three days of experimenting, and Ted said so. Tess was squinting at him.

“You know, we’ve been lovey-dovey for a couple of weeks now, and we both said that we’d like to move towards a stable, long term relationship, right?”