author: aj (another_juxtaposition@hotmail.com)
rating: R
codes: mandy/cj, pre-admin.
disclaimer: not mine.
archive: ask, please.
notes: for the bordy secret santa project. the gals all rock, and someone would have been very sad if it weren’t for beth, laura and luna. i don’t know what “sex-ay” is, but i figured we all like our mandy bitter.
summary: Mandy ruins everything she touches.
*
CJ’s eyes are red. Like blood stains on sheets. Mandy pushes her way past CJ’s awkwardness into the room.
“You need to grow a spine, or give up.”
There’s a Camel between her fingers. She ashes onto the carpet. Gray sparks fly, burn tiny holes. She settles on CJ’s bed, the cheap comforter scratching her skin. Her legs are crossed, black dress sliding up her thigh. She stares. CJ’s back is long, and she imagines, white and smooth. She imagines leaving a scar, tainting the perfection of her body, ruining.
Mandy ruins everything she touches, she’s known this for years. Her mother always said. Her mother always said and Mandy always opened her mouth and look where it got her, Washington, Washington and power and she might be in love with the arrogant fool in the room next door, but he will dump her in the morning because Mandy ruins everything she touches.
Midas backwards because she never asked. Prefers silver to gold. Knows worth has nothing to do with shine in the world. In the real world. In her world.
In her world she is sitting in a crappy hotel room in New Jersey smoking a Camel because Camels seem appropriate for an art history major, for a woman with too many degrees that mean nothing and a job she’s good at because she has no soul. Mandy inhales deeply and looks out the window. New Jersey and the sky is purple. A July sky, a summer night, they’re in the chemical waste capital of the nation. The Garden State. She laughs derisively.
The bathroom door closes. Mandy shuts her eyes, falls backwards. Stubs out her cigarette on the nightstand. Imagines CJ’s back. Imagines leaving bruises. Scabs. Picking them off, baby pink flesh underneath, exposed, vulnerable. Flecks of crimson scattered between.
Mandy understands power.
Pushes herself off the bed with two hands. Pulls her dress over her head, drops it behind her. Moves on her toes toward the bathroom and lets herself inside.
*
Mandy’s reflection is screaming but Mandy’s mouth is open against CJ’s neck. Doppelgangers and Mandy’s not sure which one’s real, which one is good and which is evil and maybe the moral of the story is nothing really matters.
She knocks the hair dryer onto the tile, pushes CJ against the toilet. Finger fucks her from behind, tooth and nail. Rakes her nails along CJ’s spine. Defining it. Making it visible. Strengthening.
Really she’s just doing CJ a favor. Mandy’s reflection screams in the mirror and so she closes her eyes.
*
It was easier than she thought but everything is easier when you’re willing to deal with broken pieces. She’s learned this, easily enough, that vulnerabilities make for seduction. She doesn’t mind touching the severed edges, dealing with sniffles and swollen eyes because Mandy knows pain and Mandy doesn’t have to put them back together, just reminds them what it means to feel.
CJ has jagged seams and Mandy’s teeth are rough against them. CJ isn’t broken, not yet, but she thinks she is, she thinks she’s failing and Mandy is her punishment. Mandy knows and doesn’t care, doesn’t care all, because she’s using CJ, using her fingers and her body and her long legs and she’s going to leave things behind. Behind and no one will be able to forget Mandy, not really, she’ll leave scars to make sure. Mandy’s fucking CJ like there’s no tomorrow because there isn’t, not for her, not in New Jersey, not this Friday night in July.
*
Hands pressed against wrists. Mandy’s on top, straddling, dripping on CJ’s pale belly. CJ’s wrists are crossed, Mandy’s left hand keeping them in place so she can twist, so she can pull, so she can do what she needs to do. CJ’s eyes are wide and maybe she screams, maybe she yells, maybe she pleads for Mandy to stop but Mandy doesn’t because Mandy knows.
*
This is easy, Mandy thinks. This is easy because CJ isn’t broken and this is a campaign. Campaigns mean muffins, all-you-can-eat-buffets and sex to relieve tension, sex to relieve failure, sex as the cure to all ills. So Josh called Mandy in to consult, and she’s never really been part of the campaign, never really been part of the group, Mandy’s never really been part of anything.
This is easy because Mandy’s fingers are strong and CJ’s legs are long and Toby’s eyes speak volumes of failure and Bartlet still doesn’t know any names. Mandy knows how these things work, but CJ is new and green, CJ’s belly is still white and smooth and Mandy hates weakness more than anything.
This is easy because Mandy hates. Hates to lose, hates to be left behind, out of the loop. Hates because it’s who she is, a petulant little girl with an attitude, a short woman too smart for her own good. Hates because she’s always been the first casualty and no one will mourn her death.
*
He is on the other side, the other side, the grass is greener on the other side, but there’s a tall woman between her legs and she’s seen the tears in her eyes.
Mandy moans, loudly. Hopes, hopes, louder, hopes he hears, hopes he wonders. Hopes he knows. Louder, louder, breathing heavy and deep and the fingers don’t stop moving, circling, pressure building and she’s louder and louder him on the other side and she’s always been a loud bitch.
*
Mandy’s presidential candidate is a grade-A asshole but she doesn’t really mind because she’s worked with politicians, she’s worked with worse and she always comes out at the end which is all that really matters to Mandy.
Mandy’s presidential candidate can’t remember names and nothing is ever his fault. Mandy’s presidential candidate only talks to Leo McGarry and his wife but is the best damn orator she’s ever met. She might even believe him, some of the time, but usually she’s too busy smirking at the wounded expressions of those around her.
Sam’s an interesting character in Mandy’s life, a pretty little boy with the idealism she never had, a pretty little boy who has some history with Josh, a history she’s pretty sure involved a few pretty fucks in a dark room. Maybe in New York because New York is a good place for sordid things and she’s equally convinced that CJ fucked the sour, balding Toby in that grimy city.
Incestuous. Yes. She’s separated by one degree of fucking from Sam, which sounds like some sort of come on, but Mandy has no interest in the pretty face. Which is good, because Mandy’s all Josh’s now, has been for a while, and it will only last one more night and so she’s fucking CJ because Josh will never have her, will never taste her slick skin, will never make her come begging.
Josh doesn’t mind when Mandy bites his neck and twists his arm because everything about them is argumentative. And every argument is sexual which means sometimes they are in staff meetings and Mandy’s so wet she thinks she might leave a stain on the cheap hotel seat.
Mandy’s presidential candidate is going to win and no one knows it but her.
*
CJ’s hands are circling. CJ’s long fingers are circling Mandy’s clit, heavy, light, circling slower faster circling a breath of air a breath of CJ and Mandy’s hips are a mess of motion. She moans. She moans and screams and everything is fireworks and stardust and fairytales.
And then it’s over because this is Mandy’s world, the real world, her world and there’s no such thing as happily ever after.
*
She lights a cigarette. “You’re failing,” she says, because it’s the meanest thing she knows. “Grow up and find a fucking spine.”
Her dress is a black pool at her feet. She picks it up, drapes it over her arm, slides her feet into her shoes. Walks toward the door in heels and CJ’s underwear.
“You’re fucking things up, CJ.” CJ’s eyes are swollen. Red. Like blood stains on sheets. “You’re fucking everything up.”
And Mandy walks out into the hallway, black dress on her arm. Walks out, out, down the hall, out and through an emergency door setting off an alarm, but she just keeps walking, heels clacking against tar painted asphalt, opens the door to her white BMW.
She sits on the leather, clad in CJ’s black underwear, and closes her eyes. Imagines CJ’s back.
Mandy ruins everything she touches.
*
the end.
. send a flower .