Chapter 1

"You're crazy! There's no chance for McCain to win it." Evelyn, my direct supervisor had broken into a private conversation that my buddy Rick and I were having in the break room. The election was less than twenty four hours away. Sure, all the polls showed Obama winning, but it felt like that was just the liberal media trying to stampede the undecided voters with pro Obama propaganda. It felt like that to me, at any rate, but McCain was my preferred candidate, regardless.

I had a sense that a lot of voters were saying they'd vote for the Democrat, because that was the "politically correct" response to voice. In the privacy of the polling booth, with nobody around to see how they actually voted, I really believed that many of them would cast their vote for the Republican candidate.

Evelyn and I had a bit of a history with each other. We'd dated for a few months, back when we'd first started working here at the Center. That was more than six years ago. Our romance had fizzled out after I'd told her I wasn't ready to make any long term commitments, or even to go to the point where we were seeing each other exclusively.

We fought about that for a week or so, and then she just dumped me. I'd been seeing another girl too at the time, so I didn't take any of it too seriously. About six months after our break up, Evelyn was fast tracked for promotion. She left the department we'd both been in to go work in another area of the building. Six months ago, she'd been promoted again, and transferred back to my department, as the division supervisor.

During the four years or so she'd been away, we'd had virtually no contact at all. It wasn't until her last promotion and transfer back that I had given much thought to her.

During the brief time we'd been dating, we'd had a pretty torrid sex life. We were both somewhat animalistic in our sexual preferences. She had liked to be handled roughly, and I'd always had an aggressive style with my lovemaking technique. It wasn't sexual incompatibility that had caused us problems. I still had a whole bundle of very pleasant memories of some extraordinary sexual calisthenics that we'd each put the other one through.

I liked variety though. What can I say? The other girl I'd been seeing at the time was long gone as well. I'd pretty much stopped dating. With all the clubs around, it was a lot easier to go out clubbing, and then hook up with whichever girl caught your eye and seemed willing.

It wasn't perfect, but it was fast, easy, and very enjoyable. It filled my need for variety too.

Getting back to Evelyn though, I'd found it annoying that she'd butt into my private conversation with Rick. I was on my break, and she had no business pressing her ignorant opinion on either of us.

"McCain needs to win Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. All the polls show him closing the gap in those states. Also, there's the so called 'Bradley Effect'. People say they're going to vote for the black candidate, but they never really intended to. They just don't want to admit they're prejudiced. I give at least a four percentage point swing in each of these states to the 'Bradley Effect'. I'm sure all the polls are skewed in Obama's favor because of that."

Evelyn just stared at me. I recognized the signs of her being angry. I'd seen a lot of that the week we'd broken up. The woman definitely had a bad temper.

"Pennsylvania and Ohio aren't in the South. Prejudice like that doesn't exist there. Even if it did, it would only be a very few voters, a lot less than the margin of victory the polls are showing for Obama."

"By ten o'clock our time, tomorrow night, Obama will have conceded, and John McCain will be the president elect. Congress will be more heavily Democratic, I'll concede that much to you, but the Republican's will still control the White House. Voters don't want a situation where one side controls everything. Most people don't want more liberals on the Supreme court either."

"You are so full of shit, Dennis. You pull these so called arguments out of your ass and present them to people like they were real facts. Obama will win the election. Do you want to make a bet?"

A bet? I'll be honest, I'd been talking about what I hoped would happen, not what I really thought would take place in the election. Evelyn was challenging me in front of my friends and work colleagues. I didn't want to seem to back away from my earlier stated position.

"What would the stakes be?" I was curious about how much she wanted to make the bet for. I'd already made up my mind that I'd accept a bet of as much as a hundred bucks, if she showed some restraint and suggested something that was a reasonable amount. It would definitely be worth that much to me not to be forced to back down in front of Rick and a few of the other guys listening to us then.