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Even amongst his circle of friends, Washington prefers to keep his private life as close to his chest as a Kevlar vest. Tonight will be no exception, though he has ventured very slightly from his comfort zone and, at Martha’s urging, has brought a date along. After he rings the bell and, once inside the foyer, a blandly cute white boy has divested them of their outerwear, he spots the mistletoe overhead. In keeping with his character he drops a single dry kiss onto Martha’s cheek, which she gracefully offers up to him, and delivers another onto lips buffed to impossible smoothness.
“Thank you, Samuel,” Martha says to the staff, and then turns back to them with a welcoming smile. She makes a perfect hostess; in another era, she would have made a perfect political wife. “Mr. Lee,” she takes his manicured hands in her own, “I’m delighted that you could make it.”
“Thank you so much for inviting us,” Lee answers, with a taut smile in Washington’s direction. “I’ve been dying to see the inside of your house since I saw the Garden & Gun spread, and at Christmas time no less --”
“You’re too kind,” says Martha, clearly flattered by the attention. “Now, what can I get you to drink? There’s beer and wine, of course, but,” and she pauses as if sharing a naughty joke, “Thomas has also brought along a few bottles to spike the eggnog with. I thought plain Maker’s would be fine, but he would insist.” She continues, “It's a Martha Stewart recipe, my mother used to make it every holiday. Two dozen egg yolks!”
Lee’s nose wrinkles in disdain, though whether from the fact of Jefferson’s presence at the party, or the mental arithmetic from calculating the calories that are present in a single glass of Martha's mother’s eggnog, Washington cannot tell.
The living room has been garlanded for the season, and Lee’s eyes widen as he takes it all in. An enormous Christmas tree glitters in one corner. The gas logs have been lit and the wall sconces dimmed. Dripless candles stand in hurricane lamps, stout and waxen in the low light. Overall, the effect is one of tasteful elegance. Washington glances over it and gives Martha an approving nod - her taste is, as always, flawless - then accepts a punch glass of eggnog. One sip in and he must fight a war with his own face, given the horrified look Lee has as he’s handed a glass all his own.
Lee takes exactly one polite, yet repulsed, sip before his lip curls in distaste, and once Martha has turned her back, Lee stashes it behind an arrangement of green hydrangeas, fresh bittersweet, and barely-open roses as red as the gaudy sweater Washington had been been talked into wearing for the evening. The thick wool knit itches, the item much too warm for the mild December they’ve been having. He pulls at his shawl collar with distaste. Perhaps if he stretches out the neck beyond repair he won’t have to wear it again.
“Did you want something else instead?” Martha asks, seeing that Lee is miraculously empty-handed. “Samuel would be more than happy to mix you a martini. Or we have --”
“--or!” Jefferson darts behind the bar, which proceeds to commandeer with his usual panache, “we could have Manhattans!” With this pronouncement he brandishes a bottle of the family label, the estate reserve that they only sell wholesale. Washington shakes his head fondly and then shakes his hand, reaching across the glittering rows of bottles and glassware to do so.
“How’s business?” he asks, as he watches Jefferson pour, by eye alone, a perfect four ounces into the stainless shaker.
“Couldn’t be better,” his friend laughs, as he tosses in aromatics and a few scoopfuls of ice. As he bruises the alcohol, Jefferson’s hips twitch in tandem with the movements of his upper body. Trust him to make a thing so innocuous as fixing a drink into a whole body enterprise.
“Eh voilá,” Jefferson presents the finished product complete with a flourish to Lee, then watches him with scrutinizing intensity as he takes a sip. “Now, be honest with me,” he places a long-fingered hand over his heart, “don’t be afraid of hurting my feelings. How is it?”
“It’s - great?” Lee says.
“Beautiful,” responds Jefferson, and claps his hands. “Now what I need you to do is tell James, right over there, he’s pretending to look at the art so he doesn’t have to mingle,” and indeed, Madison’s nose is about two inches away from Martha’s prized Singer charcoal, “that people will pay money for a premixed Manhattan--”
“--will they?” asks Washington, just to be a bit of an ass. “Because that doesn’t scream high end so much as lowbrow hillbilly--”
“Watch yourself there, George.” Jefferson drapes an arm over Lee’s shoulders like they’re already great friends, though Martha has yet to make the proper introduction. From the look on his date’s face it would appear that Jefferson’s forelimb weighs about as much as an anvil. “We’re concerned with the youth demographic as a growth luxury market, so if you’re over the age of thirty,” he looks down at Lee, wrinkles his nose. “How old are you, again?”
“I didn’t say,” says Lee, eyebrows raising at the audacity of the question. While thirty-four was a fine age to be, the body shorn of baby fat, head hair still plentiful, the truth of the answer belonged to no man but its owner. Washington spares but a moment of concern for such outrageous behavior, deciding to assume for the sake of argument that Jefferson is already drunk. Better to chalk it up to holiday extravagance rather than the rot in the roots of the family tree, whose branches have been infected with ethanol and poison from Richmond all the way up to Covington.
“--no opinions for old men,” finishes Jefferson with a glare in Washington’s direction. He focuses back on Lee and says, “Now, if you wanted to invest, of course,” he raises his eyebrows significantly, "that would be another matter entirely.”
Washington chuckles at such transparency. “I get an opinion if I pony up,” he says, “I’ll pass. The youth will be that much better for it.”
Martha returns with the Adamses in tow, and presents Lee to them. They repeat the rigamarole with the drinks orders, Jefferson happy to replace the hired help in this task at least, until everyone has a glass of eggnog in one hand and a single barrel reserve, neat, on ice, or mixed, in the other.
It is at this juncture that Lee leans over with a question. “You’re sure he’s--? I mean, he’s awfully--?” His eyes widen with the omitted accusation, like he expects some great reveal about Jefferson’s personal inclinations.
Washington shrugs by way of answer and stares into the fireplace. Stockings hang from the mantle, their hooks hidden by swathes of fresh greenery and dishes of whole nuts in their shells. Martha has no children of her own, though. The stockings are just for show.
“He’s always been like that,” he says at last. “But as far as I know he’s as straight as they come. His wife would probably take issue with that assumption. And, I mean, the man’s got kids?”
“Huh,” says Lee, taking a sip of his drink as he ponders this new information. “A lot of people have kids--? Doesn’t mean that they’re--?” and here he trails off. His habit of turning declaratives into unfinished, uptalk-y questions is starting to grate on Washington’s nerves.
The truth of the matter is that Jefferson likes women, always has, as long as Washington’s known him. When they were of an age, during college and right after, it hadn’t manifested as anything particularly out of the ordinary. Girls, dozens of them, who were conquests rather than proper paramours. A position in the family business, marriage to a girl with connections down Oxford way, a couple of kids in, well. Let it be known that help came in many forms: a sweet Jamaican girl who was beloved by the children and had to be sent back to the islands, suddenly, for “personal reasons.” A string of hourly baby sitters, he could only imagine, and then a local girl, a Howard grad, who’d signed on as an au pair to offset the cost of a master’s in public health. Last Washington had heard, she’d moved into one of their spare bedrooms. Close at hand, Jefferson had told him once over sandwiches at his club, that’s the thing, otherwise you can’t keep an eye on them.
However the social hour is progressing swimmingly, so much so that by his third drink Washington has relaxed a bit. Charles fits smoothly among this group, a wooden peg polished for precisely such a purpose. Good in person, better than. Attentive with Adams, actually listening to his tedious rant about the Dream Act and asking questions in turn; charming with Abigail, who’s thrilled that someone wants to hear about the difficulties renovating their second home on the Cape. He pulls out his phone and sends Madison an email with the name of a spa in Taos, renowned for asthmatics, appending the names of a few small plates places in town he thinks Dolley might enjoy.
“It was at one of the DC chapter events,” Lee is now saying, in response to her question about whether they met online. With a possessive hand on the knee of Washington’s khakis, he continues, “now, as I heard it at the time, apparently George had gone a few times to the drinks meetups in NoVa--”
“--I know what you’re thinking, but it’s closer to home,” Washington interjects, and Dolley shakes her head as if to say she understands. Madison coughs into his fist, a hacking wet sound, and hums his assent.
“That chapter is dead on its feet, though,” Lee tells Dolley, sloshing his drink with the force of his gesture. “The District is really where the energy is--”
“I don’t like to look for parking,” Washington says, to no one in particular, “Fairfax is fine.”
“Good schools,” says Madison, absently, as if he’s been asked his opinion during a totally different conversation. Perhaps that’s what married life does to a man, Washington surmises: less a matter of clipped balls or wings, and more a low-level state of being constantly checked out.
Lee continues unabated, with his one-man pitch, “--and we’re doing all kinds of things, with speakers, and a fabulously successful networking event. The networking is really what we’re going to be known for. I mean, we’ve even had a couple of Democrats come!”
Networking was the pitch, always was. The pitch and the excuse. Really, Washington already knew everyone worth knowing, had done so before he’d decided to make the drive in and pony up for a garage. But networking would, as with all things, yield to the inevitable once cards had been pocketed and names dropped conspicuously. Why else would they sit through forty minutes of self-help blather with only a cash bar and stale cashews to sustain them?
“They didn’t stay long,” mutters Washington, into the ice at the bottom of his glass.
Lee laughs and pats his leg. “Obviously,” he tells Dolley, “there’s more to it than that. I mean, it’s a lot of fun, too. Every spring they have a weekend out at Rehoboth --? And then of course in the summer we have Pride--?”
“Dating must be horrible,” Dolley says, with a shudder and a glance at her own husband, who seems profoundly interested in his own cuticles. While he keeps his mouth shut on the matter, Washington silently agrees with her: navigating the hellscape of shared interests, mutual attraction and political beliefs was hard enough without the eighty-hour standard issue workweek that the DMV wore like a flag pinned to its collective lapel.
In this town, Washington was painfully aware, it mattered less who you fucked and more who you answered to. Nevertheless, a gentleman’s agreement was tacitly in place, the same code of conduct men like him had hewed to since the sixties. Private homes, after-work drinks, a date at the opera or a Nats game rounded out with a few female friends to obscure the open secret.
“Well,” Lee adds, shooting Washington a coy smile like he’s won a prize, “I don’t know what persuaded you to visit our chapter, but we are all so glad that you did.”
“Awww,” says Dolley, and clasps her hands in front of her ample bosom as Lee squeezes his knee again, and then kisses the side of his face. “I’m glad too! Y’all are too cute.”
Washington fights the faint wave of nausea at this public display, and is preparing to brush him off so that he can stand up for his fourth and final drink when a woman’s voice drifts in from the doorway. It seems she is making her excuses before she’s so much as taken off her coat, given the repentant tone of her voice.
“I’m really, really sorry we’re late,” she says. “Someone insisted that we wait until surge pricing dropped below at least 2.3,” and then a man’s voice pipes up, “It should be illegal! That kind of consumer gouging. I’ve got friends in the PIRG who’ve been looking into it, but unless there’s legislation -- and I mean federal, otherwise it’s got no teeth-- to regulate the so-called sharing economy--” and the not-Martha woman retorts, “Seriously? It’s a cab ride, not a manifesto. Gonna get our poor driver fired, asking about unions like that--”
Washington’s neck seizes up. Good thing that he’s paralyzed right now, because he knows that voice, and he knows who it belongs to and if he swivels his head to look Lee will definitely follow the direction of his gaze. His stomach lurches.
Not here, not him, not here, not this.
“We could have called a radio taxi,” he says, “and by the way? There’s nothing wrong with asking about working conditions, that’s why regulations exist—"
“Good luck with that, on a Saturday night? Anyways, we meant to be here earlier because we really can’t stay for very long.”
“Of course, Margaret,” answers Martha. “I know what a whirlwind the holiday circuit can be.”
“But didn’t Daddy tell you? It’s Peggy now.”
“Now I know, then,” she says, gently. “Did they make it to Naples all right?”
“Drove it in two days. Oh, and sorry, my plus-one?”
“Mr. Hamilton,” their hostess says, more gracious than that man deserves, “welcome to Alexandria.”
“Alex. And thank you for having me. Peggy tells me that you get up to all kinds of trouble on this side of the river.”
“Peggy,” Martha says, glossing over the subject, “you remember Thomas Jefferson. Thomas, Peggy is Philip’s youngest--”
“All kinds,” Jefferson answers on Martha’s behalf from his perch on the barstool. With a lazy drawl he asks, “You a bourbon man?”
Hamilton says, “I’m off booze tonight.”
“On a weekend?” Jefferson asks. He unfolds himself and looks Hamilton over. Sobriety does seem an odd choice and one unlikely to put him in Jefferson's good graces.
“I’ll have one. Good to see you, Thomas.” Peggy plops down on the recently vacated stool and begins eating the garnishes straight from their silver bowls. “What are we having?”
“Manhattans!” says Jefferson, “Or sours!”
“Alexander Hamilton--” says Martha, impeccable as ever despite the chaos of Jefferson’s cocktail act. Hands are being shaken and glasses tipped up by way of introduction. The couch, a pitifully formal affair, fails to conceal the distinctive crease that bisects the back of his head.
He closes his eyes and, recalling the layout of the furniture, the positions of the attendees, calculates that full extraction would take exactly ninety seconds. When Hamilton’s back was turned - Peggy was even now offering him a cocktail cherry speared on a silver pin - it would only be a matter of slumping into the upholstery, a simple tucked barrel roll over the coffee table and onto the floor, a crawl on elbows across the Morris carpet-- a quick detour to recover his coat, his car keys in that pocket - and then a speedy getaway down the parkway. He could be home in half an hour, to the Maryland state line in twenty minutes.
“This is Charles Lee--”
Lee purses his lips at Hamilton whose mouth is still working around the cherry. “Hello,” he says, managing to make the two syllables sound less enjoyable than a jab to the tear ducts with one of those cocktail sticks.
“Mr. and Mrs. James Madison,” she continues, “Alexander Hamilton.” Of those three thus named, Dolley is the only one to stand and shake hands.
“And,” she rests a hand on his shoulder and though Washington is not prone to making a scene, any scene, he thinks he could make an exception in this instance. He could find an excuse, however outlandish or extreme. Martha, he’d say, I have to leave -- a minor member of the Saudi Royal family was just assassinated -- my security system is going off and the cops are on their way -- the DOS attacks are coming from behind the Great Firewall -- it’s about to start snowing, the roads will be a wreck -- I’m having a reaction to all this dairy and will be in your bathroom until they break down the catering -- “George Washington.”
If Hamilton is surprised to see him there on Martha’s couch, his face shows no sign of it. He’s the first to extend a hand, which he hadn’t done with any of the others, and Washington has to twist in his seat to take it so that he ends up staring up at Hamilton’s chin.
“Nice ensemble,” says Hamilton, lifting an eyebrow. “Really digging the Santa vibe you’re putting out into the world.”
(The words reach their target and explode in a crescendo of sparks. Had Hamilton tried his hand at politics he’d have failed miserably, lacking the merest hint of that profession’s sociopathic self-involvement. In a drab, gray landscape of breakfast meetings with their mediocre danishes and sour coffee, jowly middle-aged white men in suits and five variations on the same tie, Hamilton is a jagged streak of violent brightness.)
All that is by way of saying that Washington should have vetoed the sweater that afternoon when Lee lifted it from the Joseph Banks box.
“No? You look nice,” Lee had said, standing behind Washington in front of the mirror, after he’d discarded his suit jacket and pulled it on.
Washington was taken aback by the item, which he’d had no hand in choosing. “It's very... bright. I don’t know if red is my color.”
“It's festive,” countered Lee with a pleased little smirk as he inspected them, side by side in the bedroom mirror. “Besides, didn’t her RSVP say seasonal attire? And we're coordinated, which is good, because there will be pictures!” He leaned in to adjust the knot of his own tie, a blue and emerald tartan interspersed with thin lashings of red that, unfortunately, matched the sweater perfectly.
“I think I own a green sweater,” Washington protested. Lee was too busy with his own reflection to hear him; chest puffed out, with a pivot to check the tails of his blazer.
“I put it in the donate pile,” Lee says, “this one is so much nicer. Merry Christmas!”
Given that it is Saturday night during the holiday season, Washington had already planned on being drunk even before his - well, whatever Hamilton is, was to him - before he’d inconveniently materialized, a few sex-starved months after their last encounter.
They do not cross paths much over the next half hour. Washington studiously avoids looking in Hamilton’s direction, but he registers his presence in every configuration of the room.
Lee’s engrossed in conversation with Peggy; he appears to be trying to get her to attend a chapter meeting, just to see what it’s about. Adams and Madison are listening to Jefferson pitch his latest boozy concoction, Martha and Dolley are listening, politely, to Abigail’s woes about the summer place, as she can’t seem to keep a contractor. She has uttered the phrase “those people” at least twice.
“So this is famous,” Hamilton says as he approaches from the left. His neck cracks as he tilts it to look at the charcoal drawing.
“There’s another one,” he answers while staring straight ahead. From this angle, his reflection becomes as one with the young man depicted there; for a moment he has unkempt hair and a thinner face, a rebellious light in his eyes not yet snuffed out by experience.
Stuck in eastbound traffic on 66, watching the train rocket past him as it heads for the water, he has allowed himself to contemplate Hamilton as a person, With the radio off he might recall the way Hamilton fucked and the way he pushed himself, as if the one enabled, or perhaps sustained the other. If he were feeling unusually introspective, he might reflect on his own role in their couplings, how, by impulse and surrender he would heat the knife with which Hamilton would slice through the fleshy skin of bureaucracy.
He was so much fuel, he knew that. For every one of him there had been four, five, how ever many more. Men Hamilton despised. Whose politics he abhorred, with lifestyles he denigrated loudly and for all to hear - as if he were proving something by riding the bus with the downtrodden. The best thing a man in his position could have given Hamilton would have been his refusal. But (and his neck throbs even now as he thinks of it) all that would do would hasten his availability for the next man: the oil lobbyist, tobacco exec, pharma lawyer -- an endless parade of unacceptables whose fucking would be fueled by mutual hatred, and whose leaving would have been a foregone conclusion before they’d so much as kissed.
“Here?” Hamilton asks. “Like in this house?”
Washington nods. When his head turns, his face becomes his own again, reflected there in profile. “It’s in her bedroom.” After a moment to deliberate he supplies the coordinates, “Last door on the left.”
Hamilton jiggles his leg so hard that Washington can feel the vibrations through the floor. “Upstairs?”
“What’s that?” asks Lee, as he comes to stand between them, hooking his right arm into Washington’s left. He also looks at the drawing as if trying to calculate its worth and then asks, without so much a wayward glance in Hamilton’s direction, “Do you know if the kitchen walls had been knocked down before she moved here? Because that would have been a historic preservation nightmare.”
“There are reasons for that--” Hamilton starts to say, and Washington cuts him off before he gets wind of Lee’s politics. There wasn’t enough Excedrin in the world for that conversation. “It’s been in the family for generations,” Washington says, “but I’m sure she’d tell you all about it, the woman does enjoy a renovation.”
“Should I?” Lee says, ignoring Hamilton like he's practiced it. “Do you think she’d give me a tour of the rest of the house?”
“The kitchen,” Washington says, “and the dining room, sure. She doesn’t like people going upstairs, though, as a rule.” A half-truth was always easier than an outright lie.
Lee absorbs this misinformation. “Fair enough,” he says. “Everything that’s worth seeing is down here anyways. I only saw one picture in that spread of a guest bedroom, and it didn’t have anything important in it.”
“What does that mean,” Hamilton asks, leaning around behind Lee’s back and circumventing him entirely, “important?”
Lee’s forehead creases up at Washington, whose only response is to shrug.
“Architecturally?” he says. His sneer is auditory rather than emanating from his face, but Washington watches it register on Hamilton’s own. “In terms of like, design?”
“Right,” Hamilton says. He glances back over. Washington averts his eyes. His phone chooses that moment to buzz in his pocket. Wordlessly he unthreads his arm from Lee’s clingy embrace and says, “If you’ll excuse me for a moment--”
“Who is it?” Lee asks, peering over to look at the screen.
“Franklin,” he lies. It is in fact a text message chain which started up on Tuesday the 17th of October, amongst several of his colleagues, who were planning to go to a Japanese drinking establishment after their racquetball game. For the life of him, he cannot figure out how to unsubscribe from it.
“Of course,” Lee says, with a devastating smile in Hamilton’s direction, “I’ll ask about that tour.”
Washington heads for the kitchen, then doubles back when he sees Jefferson standing in front of the SubZero, both doors wide open and a perplexed look on his handsome face.
“Why, Martha, why do you insist on depriving me of ice cream?” he asks the interior of the freezer. She keeps a lactose-free home, Washington could tell him, but instead he backs out through the dining room and jogs quickly up the steps to the second floor.
The second Sargent hangs at the foot of Martha’s bed. Lee wouldn’t have known it was here, nor would the photographer. It is registered as “private collection” in the Athenaeum database, and for all the world knows, is vaulted away in the Chelsea hideaway of an ex-Soviet oligarch.
This one is pencil rather than charcoal. Instead of one finished countenance, it consists of the partially sketched details of a young man’s torso, figures drawn for practice. Tucked behind discreetly alarmed glass, the faded gray sketch paper is dimpled and thick. He stands there for a moment with his hands clasped at parade rest. Martha appreciates beauty, but like him, she also favors selfishness: to keep something of such value hidden from the world, one’s own secret, to feast upon, gorge on. It is the truest of pleasures.
“Wow,” says Hamilton as he comes into the bedroom. “That guy can talk.”
“Where is he?” Washington asks, certain that it will have been dealt with.
“He asked for the tour,” Hamilton says, “I tagged along for the outside part. Someone’s been smoking weed on the back porch.”
“Sure,” he answers. “One guess who that is.” He points at the Singer. Hamilton ignores it, then grins at him with all the hostile energy of a lewd tomcat. “If I want to see art, I’ll go to the Portrait Gallery during my lunch break, think about Manifest Destiny over a Smoke Shack afterwards.
“I thought you might like to see it.” His voice sounds stiff and disappointed.
Hamilton glances at the drawing. “Pretty sure your pecs are nicer than that. Shame you’re wasting them on that waxen piece of shit of a date you’re with. Why him, exactly?”
Washington puts his hands in his pockets. What answer could he possibly give? That a fickle heart was the domain of the young, and that as your age rose along with your medical premiums, then you might concede to the pathetic truth that choices had to be made amongst options each of which was less desirable than the last.
Flatly he says, “It’s the holidays.” Hamilton hoots at that, crows' feet crinkling as he buckles over with laughter.” “Oh my god,” he says as he catches his breath, “that has to be the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”
With a grimace he tries to dredge up an adequate defense for Lee. His abs worthy of women’s perfume ads, an honest-to-goodness eight-pack, those are nice, worth all the time he puts in at the gym. He knows his way around a set of glassware, can discuss art and politics in equal measure, has impeccable Southern manners, even if he did give the impression while talking to you that he’d rather be working on his abs. He’ll bottom for Washington, on occasion. That’s pretty good, although rarer than he’d like...but, with a new slate of restrictive legislation coming in, work is more stressful than usual...well, it’s only to be expected, at his age. It could be remedied. Manual stimulation, chemical solutions, prescription blue pills dished out at the CVS; he’d even try the snake oil Lee bought at the Foggy Bottom Whole Foods, if it would help.
“He’s all right,” he counters, and in a sudden burst of honesty says, “and I don’t want to die alone.”
Hamilton glares up at him. With two sharp fingers he pokes his sternum, punctuating the words with the movement.
“You.” Tap. “Are.” Tap. “Not.” Tap. “Dead.” Tap. “Yet.”
He takes a step closer and the fact of his presence threatens to swallow Washington whole.
“And while you’re alive? Anyone with an ounce of sense can see you’re bored out of your fucking skull. If Lee can’t, it’s because he’s already dead inside.”
“The party--” he says, weakly. In truth he feels no remorse at the prospect of missing the rest of it.
“--the party,” Hamilton mocks, and grabs Washington’s hand. He leads them into the en suite and wastes no time backing Washington up against the left-hand sink, the one with more counter space. It is cluttered with expensive detritus which looks altogether familiar: their gilded packages full of promises to reclaim lost youth or its dermatological substitute, collagen. “Fuck the party in general and fuck your date in particular. Across the room, even, I can tell that guy’s a major prude. I mean, hell, Peggy can see it, and she thinks we’re all a bunch of oversexed dick fiends. Not that she’s wrong about us--”
“Watch who you call we,” Washington’s temper froths at his temples. “I’m hardly part of your little club.” Damn it all to hell, he knew what he was getting into, coming up here. He knew from the moment he saw the relentless smirk on Hamilton’s face that every barb would push him closer and closer to his breaking point. Drinks aside, the equipment has shown up for its shift no problem.
“Right,” says Hamilton, with a flash in his eyes like fire. “Right, I forgot. You belong to the capital repressed chapter of some don’t tread on me bullshit.” He grins, then, his eyes lit with manic energy. “Come on,” he urges, “haven’t you missed me? Just the once, for old time’s sake.” He nuzzles against the crook of Washington’s neck, “We used to have so much fun. And--” he pulls at the awful collar of the sweater, making space for his teeth to dip lower, as they graze over his collarbone, “--it’s been a hot minute since you came on my face,” Washington’s body stiffens against the memory of the last time they’d done that, in stark contrast to Lee, who had let him do it once, in the shower, and grimaced like Washington was pissing on him the whole time. After that he’d left the matter alone.
As if reading his memories, Hamilton purrs, “Does he let you do that? Guy that put together, that - that perfect, my guess is that he can’t stand being rumpled up. But you,” he tugs on the hem of Washington’s sweater, which is far too hot for the mild December, the wool trapping heat he’d almost forgotten the taste of, “God, man, you used to mess me up good.”
“I remember,” Washington says, and how.
“He make you shower before you fuck ?” he asks, breath coming in shallow rasps like he’s only just come up from a kiss.
“Hamilton--” he starts but does not finish.
“I can tell by looking at you,” his hands come to rest on Washington’s shoulders and he squeezes, “that he’s not taking care of you right.” For that accusation Washington lacks a rejoinder. For the second time that evening, Hamilton’s truth lands true. “You’re so fucking full,” Hamilton whispers a hand roving where it should absolutely not be, “aren’t you?” Come on, daddy. You need it milked out of you?”
“Jesus Christ, Hamilton,” says Washington, after he chokes on his own tongue, “that’s disgusting...”
“God, please, can anyone show me disgusting?” Hamilton says, looking around the small room like he’s angling for a fight. Like there might be another taker on his way, downstairs, right outside the front door. Like there probably was. It was Saturday night, after all.
“Shut up,” he tries to say, while Hamilton’s leg works its way in between his own.
Washington cannot blame anyone else for this course of action, cannot write it off as the unfortunate byproduct of alcohol or even boredom. Hamilton is the bad decision that he makes, over and over, the path he walks though it is littered with spiked seedpods which cut the soles of his feet. He will choose this over rationality or what he understands as love or companionship every time. Washington’s thighs clamp down with brute strength and Hamilton gasps out a laugh like he’s won. “There he is.” He rocks his body, feels what he’s working with, and to Washington’s neck says, “God, your dick is so nice. Did I ever tell you that?”
“Many times,” he croaks as Hamilton goes for his the buckle of his belt, which jangles forlornly against the front of his khakis.
“Want me to ride you?” Hamilton asks as he unzips him, slow and deliberate, no trace of the desperation he’d so much as hinted at a moment ago. “Floor looks pretty solid,” and here he taps his foot again. “But an old place like this, we’d be lucky to have the plaster flake off and land in Lee’s hair. Does he straighten it? Please tell me he does.”
“I’m not answering that,” Washington says, and kisses Hamilton square on the mouth. It’s the only reliable way to shut him up. The edge of this sink digs into his backside as he leans against it. Hamilton tastes of peppermint and he kisses like it’s all part of the fight. Hamilton’s jaw clamps shut and for one brief moment, Washington brings his hands up to cup the sides of his face. A series of noises too tiny to register as moans, more like glottal clicks of breath, escape Hamilton’s throat as his mouth relaxes.
“What do you need?” Washington asks, as Hamilton sags against his chest.
“I don’t know,” Hamilton answers. His tone is plaintive. He looks blurred, liquid, lost. “Everything.”
“Okay,” he nods, folding the other man into his arms and then spinning them so their positions are reversed and Hamilton is the one pinned to the marble and they are both looking in the mirror.
“Take your pants off,” he says with a step back so there’s space between their bodies. With a musical sound Hamilton unbuckles and shimmies his way out of them. He has foregone any underwear, a realization which simultaneously makes Washington so livid he cannot see straight -- what if it hadn’t been him, had been a different jackoff with a grudge to bear -- and floods him with hunger so acute that he folds to his knees without conscious thought. It is only when he lands on the marble tile, knees clacking against the floor that he notices. His thumbs spread Hamilton’s backside, reminding himself of this familiar terrain, and then he lets loose the saliva pooling his mouth and spits.
The sound reverberates around them, an echo that causes Hamilton to shake beneath his grip. He twists as if he means to escape, as if the stark reality of what they are about to do has only now swum up to his consciousness. It does not matter: the buzz of holiday jazz that drifts up from downstairs, the knowledge that everyone he knows and respects is in that room and it will be impossible to conceal. What they have started must be seen through to the end, consequences be damned. He doesn’t care. If it’s a mistake, let it be his own to make.
“Oh, shit,” Hamilton says, the words quiet but clear. They are directly above the downstairs half bath, and sound travels between the old pipes, regardless of the modern insulation.
“Be quiet.” Then Washington lets his teeth graze over the skin of Hamilton’s ass, inviting him to do the opposite of what he’s ordered.
He squeezes his eyes tightly as he buries his face in between Hamilton’s ass cheeks, as if by deafening himself Hamilton might be inclined to follow suit and muffle his own sounds. Overwhelmed by the pressure of that tight space, heated to boiling with sweat breaking out across his scalp, he scrapes his hand along Hamilton’s inner right thigh and lifts it up, out of his pants. The shoe snags on the cuff before it tumbles into the trouser leg. His foot is covered by a dark sock held up by the merest fragment of exhausted elastic. That foot kicks back at an angle as he holds Hamilton’s knee atop the counter and gives himself more space to work with.
A nervous, frenetic laugh echoes up from the sink basin. Each time Washington licks upwards Hamilton releases a tiny giggle. Just beyond his field of vision, Washington thinks he sees Hamilton’s toes curl. He reaches a hand around to be sure, finds them clenched and rigid against his palm.
“Ohhh shit,” he laughs, “shit, okay. You can keep doing that forever.” Washington spreads his hand over Hamilton’s ankle in order to pin it to the sink. With his other hand he drags his nails across the downy skin of Hamilton’s upper thigh, which makes him shudder and tighten around Washington’s tongue.
There is never enough time. They never have enough time. It’s barely enough to loosen him. Whoever has been here in the interim - and Washington has no doubt that there have been more than a handful - they have not wrecked or spoiled him.
Washington pauses in his attentions, hands spread wide across the slight expanse of Hamiton’s backside and ponders his next move. With Lee it takes forever, the wilting, the coaxing, the texting while they wait to try again. Now he is hard as a ceremonial sword, and Hamilton is all too willing.
“I’m good,” Hamilton insists, with a glance over his shoulder to the kneeling figure behind him. “I’m so, so good. Honest. You can fuck me if you want.”
“You’re clean?” he asks. His cock bobs heavy in front of his stomach as he stands. It brushes against the sensitive skin of Hamilton’s thighs and his reflection flinches at the graze.
“Sure,” he says, “I don’t, you know - with everyone?”
“How long?” Washington asks.
“Less than a month,” he pants, “come on, do I need a fucking permission slip here?”
Washington growls then, and looks around for something he can use. There are containers encroaching all across the counter. He grabs a jar with a silver lid and unscrews it. The cream inside is rich and thick, a faint floral smell wafting up from the container. With a few fingers, he swipes up a thick glob of the stuff and proceeds to swiftly, deliberately, open Hamilton up before either of them have time to reconsider. One finger elicits only a soft gasp; two, scissored, make him curse; three, a staccato noise like a hammer against a nail. At four, Hamilton reaches around and grabs onto his wrist to hold him in place.
“Come on,” he goads once more. “Hurry up, hurry up.”
“Someone should shut you up,” Washington paints the scraped flesh of his ass cheek with the remainder of the stuff which leaves it streaked with white atop the pink, “someone should shut your bitch ass right the hell up.”
“You do it,” gasps Hamilton, as he positions himself just between his ass cheeks, faintly shiny with their expensive lube, “do it if you can, old man.”
One thrust is all it takes, after the first misguided attempt that slides down between his legs. After that it is perfect, Hamilton as blissfully tight as he’d remembered, hands braced against the sink, teeth gritted as he tries to keep himself upright. Foregoing the condom was one of those things that, on paper, shouldn’t make a drastic difference in the pleasure felt. But it did. It made all the goddamn difference.
Washington fucks like he lives; unflinchingly, assured in his masculine power, his rectitude, his rightness. Even balls-deep in sin, he’s got to be doing something right. With his right hand he hoists Hamilton’s leg up by the knee again and angles it across the bare expanse of the countertop.
“Oh, Jesus fucking Christ,” Hamilton moans the next time Washington enters him, pulls the skin from around his ass tight enough to tear. In the mirror, Hamilton gnashes his teeth. Watching him get fucked -- how his jaw clamps up each time Washington thrusts past the tight ring of muscle that grabs him like a fist -- is what he imagines drugs must be like. “Go-oddd.”
Sweat has condensed all along Hamilton’s hairline. His expression contorts each time Washington thrusts, one side of his lip drawing up in a blissed out curl. They are practically plastered together through their clothes. Beneath his sweater, his button-down, and his undershirt, Washington’s chest drips with sweat.
How long has passed, whether five minutes or an hour, Washington finds he does not care. Every moment he is not fucking Hamilton, who in a moment of true inspiration is holding onto the knobs of the sink so he may extend his spine completely parallel to the floor, is a minute he would rather be dead. Every time Hamilton brings himself to the brink, fucking back on to his cock like he wants to taste it in his throat, as he clenches up around Washington and lets rip a ragged groan, he pulls out, lets him gape for a second, feel his absence.
It is during one of these interludes that Washington comes back to his body, which until this point had been reduced to the points of contact where he and Hamilton were joined, that he becomes aware of a gentle knock on the door. Cold terror floods through his limbs, and yet he stays hard, the very tip of his cock gliding along Hamilton’s entrance when the rap comes again.
Martha’s voice is muffled from behind the door. “George?” she says. “Are you in there?”
Washington makes eye contact with Hamilton, who has dropped onto his forearms to brace himself against the sink. Their reflections pant in tandem. He breathes through his nose and tries to will his heart to slow, his erection not to flag.
“Was it the eggnog?” Martha asks, when he does not answer, “Because your boyfriend thinks you might be mildly lactose intolerant.”
In the mirror, Hamilton’s reflection rolls its eyes, and upon being caught, mouths the word boyfriend? at Washington in disbelief. Answering the silence which greets her, Martha continues, “There’s medicines in the second drawer from the left, if that’s what it is. George?”
Riding the sweet crest of disbelief at getting hard and almost getting caught he says, “That’s exactly what it is. Tell him that. I’ll be down when - that I’ll be down when I’m done.”
“All right,” says Martha sweetly. He’s going to have to buy her so many floral arrangements to make up for this, for hooking up with a big-mouthed bureaucrat during her holiday party. The door closes with a faint, nearly imperceptible click. Washington gusts out a relieved sigh. Hamilton rolls his hips.
“Close call,” he pants. “Guess you’d better finish.”
“Can I come in you?” he manages to ask, after a blissfully short interlude.
“Jesus, yes,” Hamilton whines, pitching his body back against Washington’s own, speeding up the pace like he’s desperate to be filled.
And he is desperate, calls him daddy and sir and old man and says fuckmefuckmefuckme.
Washington has cried only a handful of times in his life, but when he comes -- and this is no mere dribble, but a gushing roar worth every bit of the evening’s dissimulation -- sweat streams down his face, stings his eyes. He stays hard, another miracle, pulls Hamilton up, flush against his body and one knee in his hand, holding him like a doll and says, “Go on, boy.” Hamilton’s eyes screw shut and Washington fucks him through it, oddly proud that he can still perform.
Hamilton makes for an appreciative audience, too, cranes his neck back for a kiss as Washington releases his leg. He wobbles for a moment, boneless from pleasure and says, "Whoa.”
“Mmm,” Washington agrees.
“Let’s stay up here,” Hamilton says, even as he is covering his one bare leg with his pants. “Let’s stay here, and take a shower, and then see if we can break that old ass bed.”
Washington feels a twinge of an emotion. Hamilton’s tone is joking, light, but what would it mean to wish for the same?
“There’s no food,” he offers as a counterargument, “we can hardly live here.”
“I’ll have Peggy intercept a pizza guy.” He straps himself into his belt, bends down to relace his disheveled shoe and then does up Washington’s flies, fastens his belt reverently. He works smoothly. The two of them have secrecy down to an art.
“You’re all sweaty, here,” Hamilton hands him a woman’s face wipe, which mitigates the redness somewhat. His eyes still sting and he swipes it below those as well.
“Thank you,” he says and when Hamilton shrugs he leans over and kisses him again.
“Sure,” Hamilton fluffs his hair in the mirror, hand on the door handle. “Well, I’ll see you?”
“Yes,” says Washington looking around for the mouthwash. “See you, too.”
