Melissa’s hotel in DC was as boring and anonymous as only a chain hotel could be.

She checked in just before 11 pm. The concrete box room was costing her well over $200 just for the night. For a boring, soulless room that didn’t even have a chair that wasn’t bolted to the floor, it was outrageous, but that is DC for you. She decided that as she was still married, his or rather their joint account should pay for it.

The upside was that it was fairly close to her husband’s condo in Alexandria. The ownership of that was a mystery to her, but she recalled him saying that he’d bought it after his first re-election, but he never did divulge how much it cost. She kicked herself for not including that in the list of assets to be divided in the divorce, but it was too late now and… If she had been too greedy, he would have more to argue against.

Melissa turned in almost as soon as she got to her room. She had an early start in the morning because she planned to pay a visit to her husband a little after 7 am. If she could rely on one thing about her adulterous partner, that was that he was a stickler for routine.

That routine would mean that he would rise at 6:45 am, take a ten-minute shower, have a shave and spend five minutes flossing his perfect-looking but 100% fake teeth. She wanted to serve him with the divorce petition before he chose which one of his more than thirty made-to-measure suits he was going to wear that day. Compared to some others in his party, he was always immaculately dressed, especially when compared to the jerk who always appeared on camera in shirtsleeves and frequently sporting a yellow tie that told everyone that he would act like a coward when the going got tough.

The suit was all set off with a blue shirt and a silk tie. The shirt was his attempt at appearing as a man of the people. It was all fake, but he did look a lot more professional than his yellow tie-wearing colleague who had the next office to his in the block next to the Congress building.

---

[The following morning 06:50]
A cab dropped Melissa off at the end of the street where his condo was located. Once again, she paid with their joint credit card. Now that she was in DC, she didn't care who tracked her and her spending. With what she was about to do, any pretext of being stealthy just didn't matter. Unless someone was monitoring the card activity in real time, she was good to go. She would only use it a couple more times before hopefully being a free woman at last.

Her watch said 06:52 when she quietly let herself into the condo with the key that he’d given her after his first re-election. She could hear the shower from upstairs. Good, she thought to herself, he’s on time.

Melissa headed straight for the kitchen. As she had expected, the coffee maker was just springing into life. Two cups were on the worktop next to the machine. Two cups meant that either he’d got wind of her impending visit or that ‘she’ was here.
Then, she saw that one of the cups had the string of a teabag visible. The box of tea on the counter said 'Zero Caffeine'. That confirmed it, 'she' was here. At least she was looking after the baby.

‘She’ could witness the documents provided that she was over eighteen. If she wasn’t, then Melissa would be calling 911. Statutory rape was a crime here, just like back home. He could probably wiggle his way out of that one, but his career could well be over.

Once the shower stopped, Melissa could hear two voices. That confirmed it. She or possibly another ‘she’ was here.
The clock had just ticked over to 07:10 when he came downstairs.

“Fuck!” was his first word when he saw Melissa sitting calmly at the kitchen table.

“Nice to see you. Looking ready to battle the opposition, as usual, I see?” was her prepared response.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Melissa?”

“I’m here to serve you these,” she said, thrusting the three documents into his chest.

“What?...”
Then he saw the top document. The word ‘Divorce’ was right there for him to see.

“Why are you doing this? I thought that we were good?”

“Why? Because of this.”

She handed him the picture of his pregnant intern.
“Don’t ask who sent it, as I don’t know. I would guess that it was one of your staff. I’d like the ring back, by the way, it was my family's only heirloom, as you well know.”

Her soon-to-be former husband, Jeff, was usually so sure-footed under pressure. He was one of the few on his side of the aisle who could debate issues rather than slagging off the members on the other side. For once, he was lost for words.

His surprise only increased when he read the second and third documents.

The second document was their public financial settlement. This was the one that showed him buying their house from her and where money from his legal accounts would be put into trust for our children.

The third paper was where it visibly hurt him. This was the division of the offshore accounts.

“I think that I’m being very reasonable considering the trouble you would be in if those accounts in Panama and the rest were made public.”

“But… you would go down as well. Your name is on them?”

“True, but as I have never been to Panama nor to any of the other countries where you have accounts, I could hardly have signed the documents opening them. Unless… you used someone posing as me, but I don’t think that even you are that devious.”

Finally, he sat down with slumped shoulders.

“How long?”

“How long have I known about this? The email arrived just over a week ago. The picture of the ring made me very suspicious. Then I found out that you had changed the combination of the safe, where I had assumed that the ring was all safe and sound. That simple thing that you did without telling me caused me to go and investigate. The flash drive that I found was very, very incriminating. Your donors would not like to be exposed should the records on it go public.”

“I…”

Once again, he was lost for words. Melissa was sure that it was only temporary. She wondered what sort of lies were forming in his mind to explain away all the foreign bank accounts with her name on them.

Just then, ‘She’ appeared. She took one look at Melissa and stopped dead.

“Please join us, Bethany. How far along are you?” I asked, referencing her obvious ‘bump’.

“Twenty-three weeks,” she muttered as she sat next to Jeff.

“The ring, please. It belonged to my great-great-grandmother. That was how I knew that the picture on the table was real.”

Melissa stuck her hand out.

Bethany looked at Melissa’s husband. He nodded.

She removed it and gave it to Melissa.

“Once he signs these papers, he will be free to marry you. I take it that he has mentioned the ‘M’ word, seeing as he has that ring on your left-hand ring finger?”

Bethany looked shocked. His reddening face told her that he had been avoiding it. Typical.

“I’m setting you free, Jeff. A no-fault divorce under seal until after the November elections. It is the quickest and cleanest way, don’t you think? Dana has done the hard graft and cleared it with the judge. All you need to do is to sign the documents.

Jeff slumped. Bethany looked for some empathy from him, but it was not forthcoming. He was just staring at the financial documents.

Melissa decided to take the initiative.

“Bethany, I take it the tea is for you?”

She just nodded in response. Words were just not coming out of her mouth in any meaningful form.

Melissa stood up and put the already prepared kettle on to boil. While she was at it, she found a large mug in a cupboard and poured one cup and one mug of coffee. The mug was for him. He looked like he could use it rather than the tiny cup that was sitting on the counter.

Then, she went to the fridge and got the non-dairy creamer. Melissa hated the stuff, but Jeff told her to use it at home. The rebel in her compromised and only did so when he was at home. In a show of defiance, Melissa decided to take her coffee black.
“Here, drink this,” said Melissa, putting the large mug down in front of him.

Once the kettle had boiled, she filled the other cup and gave it to Bethany, who sat there dunking the teabag.

“I’m not the enemy,” said Melissa.

Then she turned to Jeff.

“The revelations in the email just made it easy to decide, I want out. Sign the divorce papers, transfer the money and tell the children, then I can be out of your life for good.”

“What will you do?” he said in a voice barely above a whisper.

“I will go travelling for a bit. Rome, Florence, Venice, Paris, London, and that’s just for starters. That will give me time to decide what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. There is one thing that I am pretty sure about, and that is I will not be back in this country for any length of time, until after the November mid-terms at the very earliest, but at the moment, I just don’t know. If and when I am back in the country, I will not be going anywhere near your precious district, so you will be safe from me. I won’t rock your re-election boat if that is what you are worried about.”

She let that sink in for a few seconds before continuing.

“I don’t want to get in the way of your grifting. Thanks to your donors, I’ll have more than enough money to set up pretty well anywhere on the planet. I know one thing, and that is it probably won’t be in the lower 48. Costa Rica sounds nice, but again, I don’t know where I’ll end up apart from not being anywhere near your district or here. What your party is proposing is beyond the pale in many aspects. How you could support getting rid of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and even Food Stamps is beyond the pale. I have kept silent for far too long, but no longer. As for those so-called ‘infrastructure weeks’ that your dear leader kept promising, Joe might be old, but he’s doing more for the working class of this country than Trump would ever do. You, my hopefully soon-to-be former husband, are following his lead and voting against it. No doubt, you will be out in the district championing any projects that are going to help your constituents despite your voting record. Being two-faced is just par for the course for you, isn’t it?”

Melissa took a drink of coffee. Ugh. It was decaffeinated.

“Will you let me go, or do I have to play hardball?”

“I need to think about this,” he muttered.

“You have until this time tomorrow. After that, you will need to be on a plane home. You have to attend the Kruger’s silver Wedding bash, or have you forgotten? I sent off the RSVP for just you just to make sure that you will be there...”

He didn’t react.

“You see, I still care about you and your public image. I’ve been the perfect stay-away-from-DC political wife. I didn’t want to rock the political boat back in the district even now when I could have so easily done so. I let myself be used for years ever since you came home from one of your fact-finding trips and announced that our children were going to go to Private School. It was a done deal. I now know that it was financed by a deal you did with a coal company that is owned by a Senator from across the aisle. Let them continue to pay. One day, I’ll tell them what went on, and they can make up their own minds about who is the bad actor. Your continued statements about the ‘Russia, Russia, Russia hoax’ and that the 2020 Election was rigged should get you a prime slot on MSM [1] if I have to go public with all this stuff. You can take those half dozen other Congress critters down with you if you choose, but I want out. Let me go on my terms, and I won’t rock the boat. I will let you concoct some story to explain my absence. I’ve been doing that for years so now, it is your turn to lie to everyone but as you do that almost every day in the house and on Fox, it should not be that hard.”

Jeff looked worried. He was holding the document that described the trust fund for their children. His knuckles were white. Jeff did not like hearing the truth from Melissa.

“Don’t worry, Jeff, I’m not going to let the cat out of the bag until they are both eighteen and legally adults. That gives you one more term at least to feather some new nests. Play ball with me and marry this lovely young lady, and I will keep my lips zipped. Yes, I can be bought if our children have a future, a future that they can choose and not one dictated to by their parents.”

Melissa picked up her cup of coffee and emptied it into the sink. Then, more out of habit than anything, she rinsed it and then put it in the dishwasher. Only then did she stop and think. ‘What’s done is done, now it is up to him to play ball’.

Melissa turned to face her husband.

“Until this time tomorrow, then? You must know that letting me free is the best way forward for you both. Sign the documents, transfer the money, and we can be done. With another child on the way, you need to concentrate on her, not worrying about me and if I was going to find out about your infidelity.”

She then headed for the door into the hallway and turned around.

“Jeff, that tie does not go with that shirt and suit. Please stop wearing blue shirts. You are not and have never been a man of the people. Only people on the other side can do that. Even Fox commented on it last month. Hannity was just not impressed. Just wear a white shirt, for heavens’ sake. If you selected it, Bethany, then you really do have a lot to learn about the father of your child. He always has to look better dressed than the leader of the party in the house. Those shiny suits that Kevin has taken up wearing do nothing for him but just make it less obvious that your own ones are hand-made. Look at the baggy, shapeless crap that Trump wears. Somewhere between the two would be good.”

Melissa left them to it. She’d said what she’d come to say. Now, it was up to him.

Melissa emerged from the building and took a deep breath. She felt unclean despite having a shower that morning. The seed was done and was at a loose end for the rest of the day. The last thing she wanted was to hang around DC, where there are always freelance paparazzi on the lookout for a story. Melissa, being Melissa, had a plan.

She took a cab from the end of the street to Union Station, where she caught the next AMTRAK service to NYC. There was an exhibition at the MoMA[2] that she wanted to see. It would be a nice diversion from the swamp that is DC… the one which a certain president said that he was going to drain, just like the builders of DC had done over two hundred years before so that the capitol could be built. They’d succeeded, whereas the previous POTUS had failed miserably.

---

Melissa didn’t switch her phone on until her return train to DC stopped at Philadelphia. In the middle of all the dross, there was one text of significance.

“You win. Back Sun PM. Come to dinner.”

It was from her soon-to-be former husband.

That gave her almost 24 hours to do her own thing unless…?

She went back to her hotel with a definite plan in mind. She had not had to sit and listen to him prepare countless speeches without at least some of it sinking in. Keeping the upper hand in negotiations was something he bragged about in his campaign speeches. He'd go on about how he always managed to get something over on the other side during the horse-trading that went on when finalizing bills. It was all lies. Anyone who watched C-Span would know that.

Getting her husband to sign away a significant amount of his legal wealth wasn’t the problem. If he wanted out of their marriage, then that was the price that he’d have to pay. As she’d not asked for regular alimony, he should agree to it. The other money was a different matter. The size of the sums involved told her that these were well beyond what could be raised by a simple grift. In her opinion, almost all politicians were involved in a ‘grift’ of some sort when it came to raising money. Promise to promote an issue in return for a campaign donation if it was regular and sizeable, then even better. Small personal donations of ten or twenty dollars did nothing for a campaign when millions and millions were needed. The Super PACs made it easy for those big donors to fund campaigns. That money would, in turn, be funneled to the candidates’ campaign PAC. Grift and corruption were everywhere thanks to a series of rulings in the equally corrupt and right-wing dominated SCOTUS.

She had learned that lesson during his first primary campaign, where Jeff had defeated a five-term incumbent. Jeff’s backers had ten times the money of the incumbent. She went along with him because his dream of being elected to office was what spurred him on and had been a lot of what attracted her to him in the first place. Back then, there was a drive about him. Now, it was all about the filthy lucre and the horse-trading.

His affairs with the interns and now the discovery of his grift had finally done it for her. Now, she had to take a leaf out of his playbook and keep the upper hand until the documents were signed and the money transferred to her accounts.

---

The next day, Melissa rented a car and visited a couple of Civil War Battlefields as well as George Washington's home. There was no sense in wasting her last free day in DC moping around the hotel and deflecting the many lounge lizards, two of whom had already tried to pick her up.

---

With Jeff out of DC for most of the day on Sunday, Melissa went grocery shopping. She was going to cook him his 'last supper'. That way, he could not back out of the deal, or so she hoped.

A cab deposited her right at the front door of his condo. She said a small prayer and hoped that she wasn’t there. She was in luck. The place was empty. There were signs that whoever was last there had left in a bit of a hurry.

Melissa took the opportunity to have a look around. She didn’t go digging in drawers or anything so invasive, instead, she just looked at the state of the place.

Jeff was a neat freak. That had very much rubbed off on her, and over time, she’d become much like him. She found that the master bedroom was a tip. This wasn’t Jeff or, rather, the Jeff of old. The second and much smaller bedroom was where Jeff was sleeping. His freshly laundered shirts were hanging from wardrobe doors, still inside their plastic sleeves.

It appeared that Bethany was sleeping in the master bedroom. If she had been suffering from morning sickness, then it made sense as it had an en-suite bathroom.

With her inspection over and done, she began to prepare dinner. Melissa had decided to make him his favorite meal, dry rub ribs and fried catfish.

She was about to find out if the way to his heart was still through his stomach.

[to be continued]
[1] MSM: Mainstream Media, aka MSNBC, CNN etc and even Fox News.
[2] MoMA: Museum of Modern Art in New York.