Prologue

Believe it or not, there was a time, in the late sixties and early seventies, when the Republican Party had sane people in it. While there’s still lots of sex today, it’s underground. Back then, it was pretty open. Back then, it also encouraged intellectual inquiry and policy development. I’ve been a policy wonk for a long time. This story builds on my political and policy experience, with variations that make for good fiction. Lots of the details and characters are true --- but not all. There will be times where I wasn’t always fucked by politicians and lawyers but fucked them ... There will be male-to-male contact, but always with women participating. One woman is a sexual masochist, very much by choice. There’s at least one person that is sexually nonbinary. If these turn you off, I suggest going to a different story of mine, or a different author.

If and when I do something with a porn actress or other sex worker, I don’t hide it, as did Donald Trump with Stormy Daniels. After hearing some interviews with her, I think I’d enjoy long conversations with her, but she doesn’t strike me as the most attractive woman in the world. If he ever discards Melania, that’s another matter -- I find her extremely attractive.

Your author experienced those days. Most of the characters in this tale are drawn from experiences of those times, sometimes composites, but, frankly, some specific enough for me to work through some what-ifs. It’s not an explicit do-over story.

It is set around the 1972 Young Republican National Federation (YRNF) convention, which really was at the Marriott Twin Bridges. That hotel is no more. It was at the Virginia side of the 14th Street Bridge.

There are subplots dealing with interrogation in the intelligence community, which are based on fact. Related subplots deal with ways in which people in sensitive jobs can have active, even kinky, sex lives and not lose security clearances. Some of that is true and some is what-if. Measurement and Signature Intelligence (MASINT) really is an obscure, highly technical, and powerful area of intelligence collection; managed by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and not formalized until the 1980s.

I’m not compulsive about accuracy of times or technology. Where it helped the story, I have electronics, including workstations and music systems, that would be decades in the future. The beginnings of the Internet did exist at the time, but not the Web, powerful search engines, etc. I do use them, but they aren’t dominant in the story.

In my authorial role of God-Emperor of the Planet, I decree no sexually transmitted diseases and no unwanted pregnancy.

When this publishes, I’ll turn on comments immediately, but voting will turn on only after a few chapters