The Tension and The Spark
Part 1
by Karen H and Paula J

The usually slow Wednesday afternoon was a buzz with the news of a new campaign worker. Joey was sure that if she had read the memos that were eagerly passed around the office she would know who this person was, but she didn’t have time for that nonsense. She was very busy with the new slogan that would be used to energize the Boston community during the Convention. Which was starting in less than a week, and is apparently why they needed to add someone new to the campaign. And if you asked chief strategist Josephine Potter about it she would tell you that who ever this person was, they weren’t needed. She had enough little country club babies trying to get her attention. At least 5 of those little want to be’s had come to her desk asking to help her with the new slogan. This was her baby and no one would be stealing her thunder this time.

In her opinion the office was crowded enough. There were way too many aides and people taking up space just sitting around drinking coffee. If anything they needed some real workers not just some college aged volunteer workers. How was John Kerry ever going to get elected if these dim-witted college kids just sat on their asses all day?

She watched these kids talking and laughing for a few more minutes and couldn’t take it any longer. She stood up quickly and began to walk towards them. Just as she opened her mouth the give them a good lecture on the importance of hard work the door opened. The sun was behind him so she couldn’t catch a good glimpse of him, but something inside her told her that she knew who he was.

“Mr. Leery is here,” Gordon said as he walked by her quickly.

“Who?” Joey asked as she turned and grabbed his shirt and pulled him back towards her.

“Mr. Leery. The new guy. The new strategist they hired to help out with the convention. He’s here.”

“Well I don’t understand what the big deal is,” she said but then she turned back towards the door.

She put her hand to her head to cover the glare and as the light dimmed she saw his face. A face that brought her back to a few months earlier, and a face that she never thought she would see again.

She tried to act like she hadn’t noticed him and turned back around and walked towards her desk. She watched the mass of students and workers gather around him to either shake his hand or to sing his praises. She hadn’t known he was so popular, so well known. She walked around the corner and watched from the safety of her desk and he came nearer to where she was. Had he seen her? She hoped not. If he saw her and actually spoke to her she might just go weak in the knees. She might just become the puddle of girliness and slush that she did that night oh so many months ago. It was ok, well not ok, but acceptable doing that in front of one person that she would never see again, but here! She couldn’t go weak in front of these people. They respected her and took orders from her. If they saw how she acted that night she would just be another woman to them. Just another woman who lets her hormones and emotions guide her actions and that’s just not who she was.

She leaned against her desk for support as she watched him make his way around the office, shaking hands and saying hellos. If she didn’t know better she would think he was the one running for office, not helping a man to run.

“My God,” she thought. “He has the most amazing-”

Her body went limp as she continued to watch him. Just looking at him made her whole body feel week and turned her brain to mush.

She tried to stand up, but her feet stood still. She couldn’t just stand here all day, but right now her body told her that staying right here was all it wanted to do. Just watching him was all she could do.

She was a smart woman and she knew she couldn’t stand here for the rest of the campaign. She would have to see him and eventually even work with him. She decided to go right out and extend her hand to him like nothing was wrong when she was startled by a voice.

"Hey," the man said as he touched her shoulder lightly and as he did so she was taken back to that night in Iowa.

“Mmmm," she moaned against his lips, before he started to suckle on her throbbing pulse before pulling her thong aside and dipping a finger inside her, causing a guttural whimper to escape from her lips.

“Hey,” he said again, this time a little louder hoping to get her attention.

As she heard his voice she just about fell onto the floor and barely caught herself on her desk. Her hands grabbing onto whatever papers were neatly stacked there to keep from looking like a complete fool. Before her feet wouldn’t move at all and now they were all over the place, keeping her from standing up straight. Finally her legs and feet met in alignment and allowed her to stand. As she did she looked him straight in the eyes and said “I thought you were a republican.”

He couldn’t help but laugh at her statement and smile at her inability to stand up straight.

As much as she had tried to keep it together his sweet smile and hearty chuckle made her knees buckle once more and made her loose all ability to remain standing.

She was almost giggling, something she never did, but was saved from her embarrassment by the sound of her boss’ voice.

“Joey! Dawson! I see you two have already met, saves me the trouble. Ok, come with me. I want to introduce Dawson to the masses,” Patrick said quickly as he walked briskly to the small meeting room.

Joey and Dawson followed him quietly into the room and promptly took seats as far away from each other as possible.

Joey tried to look busy, shuffling papers that sat in front of her on the table or writing notes, but all she could think about was what an absolute fool she had been. How stupid she must have looked. Giggling, knees buckling and worst of all falling all over her desk like a love struck teenager. For god’s sake she was 28 years old, but nothing or no one, not even during her teenage years, had ever made her act this way before. “I bet he’s not reduced to mush inside,” Joey thought to herself, taking a quick glimpse of him from across the room.

Although it appeared to Joey that he was concentrating on the notes in front of him all he was thinking about was her. He couldn’t believe how this was affecting her so much, and how it was affecting him. He knew Patrick would be counting on him to say something rousing that would get the workers excited, but he couldn’t think of anything. Well not anything the pertained to the election. It was all about her.

Dawson tried so hard to read over his notes, to focus on what other people were saying but the truth of the matter was he was unable to stop thinking about her ever since he'd clapped eyes on her. He looked up casually glancing around the room, taking in the site of her in her fitted white blouse as she chewed on her pencil while reading her notes. He tried not to stare but that blouse looked familiar. "It couldn't be," he tried to tell himself, probably just saw it on someone else. She shifted in her seat and he caught a glimpse of something white underneath. God, she was killing him without doing anything.

She brushed a strand of hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear, just as she'd done that night and suddenly he was back in Iowa with her again.

They continued to move with and against one another, both fighting to stay in control, to prolong the inevitable…both fighting a losing battle, just like before. She leaned forward, still moving her hips and started to suck and nip on his earlobe as his hands moved to cup her ass.

A rough nudge in the arm brings Dawson back to the present and the reality of the whole room looking directly at him.

“And what do you think Dawson?” Patrick said once again to a few snickers from the rest of the room.

“About what?” Dawson asked hoping he didn’t sound too foolish on his first day.

“About Joey’s slogan ideas. How’s she doing?”

Dawson had heard nothing of her ideas but he was sure they were good. That night she was so smart, so sassy that anything she would come up with would be great.

“She’s amazing,” he said slowly, still trying to catch his breath from his steamy flashback. He looked sheepishly towards the floor and noticed the tightness of his jeans. He quickly placed the clipboard on the table onto his lap hoping that no one had seen.

His response got a few more snickers and laughs from the crowd. Patrick smiled and went on with his comments. Once again Dawson was lost to reality; he was trying everything to forget what he had just remembered so vividly. “Sandwiches,” he thought. “Sandwiches are not sexual. Puppies are cute; they don’t have smooth skin and long tanned legs. Damn!” He cringed and kept trying to think of something that would relieve the pressure.

Dawson was just starting to calm down when a voice interrupted his cool down process.

“If you think she’s a good strategizer, you should see her in bed!” The guy next to him said with a deep chuckle.

Dawson didn’t know who this guy was, but he didn’t like him. It took everything within him not to punch him straight in the face, but he did have to say something.

“Yeah, like you could ever get with her,” Dawson said with a smirk, really believing that Joey would never be with a guy like that.

The people sitting near them began to smile because they knew that this guy, Brock, had actually been with Joey. They had dated for several months and they had heard the daily stories of their sex life.

"Oh I can assure you, Dawson that I could get her; in fact I've had her all the way from here to Los Angeles and back again."

Brock’s smile had faded and turned into a violent sneer. Dawson had to use every ounce of strength he possessed to keep his fist from forming and knocking this guy out of his chair.

“Do you think you know her?” Brock asked he leaned close so only Dawson could hear him this time. “You don’t know her and you never will. Just remember that when you’re trying to put whatever moves you have on her. She doesn’t want you no matter what position you are on this staff. She wants a real man,” Brock snickered, trying to regain his confidence. He leaned back in his chair and placed his shiny loafers a top the table.

“Oh really?” Dawson asked as the meeting was brought to a close. He stood up next to Brock and spoke softly. “Women do a lot of strange things when they are desperate.” Joey had been watching Dawson and Brock speaking and was afraid of what they were speaking about. She watched as Dawson left the room and was about to ask Brock about their conversation but was stopped by Patrick.

“Joey, I gave this slogan thing to you over a week ago and still you really don’t have anything-“

“I know. I thought I was on to something this morning, but um I got a little distracted. I just need another day,” she said with earnestness. She knew what she needed to do to get this slogan idea on its way.

“Ok, Joey because if you don’t have anything by tomorrow morning I am assigning someone to help you out-“

Joey stopped him and smiled. “You won’t need to worry about that. I promise it will be done! I just have to do something.”

Joey straightened her shirt in the mirror on her desk smiled. “I just need to talk to him. Tell him there are no feelings from my side and he’ll say there are none from his and this whole distraction thing will be gone,” she said taking a deep breath, hoping her words were true.

She walked down the hall where she knew Dawson’s office was. “An office?” She thought. “How they hell does he get an office? He hasn’t even been here for a whole day.”

Just as she was about to knock on the half open office door she heard voices. She stepped back from the door and began to listen.

“You know, we actually had sex right in this very office,” Brock said with a hearty laugh, once again trying to convince Dawson of his relationship with Joey, but Dawson still wasn’t buying it.

“Maybe she was just going through a rough patch,” Dawson said with a laugh. “I’m glad to see she’s over it! Now please get out of my office. I have work to do.” Brock got up from his seat and was about to exit when he turned and gave Dawson one last look.

“I broke up with her. Just to let you know.”

Joey watched Brock leave the office in a huff. She decided now was as good a time as any to get their discussion of that night over with.

“Dawson?” She said as she peeked her head around the open door.

He smiled when he saw her; surprised that she was actually coming to him. He was glad that she had come, but right now he had absolutely no idea what to say to her. He rose from his chair and greeted her at the door.

“Hey Joey. I thought I was going to have to come to your desk and talk to you. I didn’t think you would be coming to me,” he said with a nervous chuckle.

“Well I think there is something important we need to discuss,” she said trying to hide any inclination of her need for him.

“Ok, but first let me tell you something. That guy is under the illusion that the two of you dated,” Dawson chuckled once again trying to hide his discomfort of being this close to her. It was discomfort because being this close to her only made him want to be closer and any closer would just cause a whole lot of problems.

Joey’s eyes widened with this statement erasing any thoughts she had of what to say.

“Listen Dawson I have made a lot of mistakes in my life and he was one of them-“

“So you actually dated him?” Dawson asks with shock as he backs away from her, unsure of what to think of her.

“It was only for a few months and I regret every second of it-“

“I can’t believe you dated him. For some reason I actually thought you had some class!”

Joey can’t believe he has just said that and she feels stupid for trying to defend herself to him.

“Well I slept with you didn’t I?”

“So I guess I wasn’t your first one night stand or your first tryst with an eligible male.”

“Well actually you were my first one night stand, congrats to you. Oh and thank you because you have put me off of them for the rest of my life!”

“Oh,” he said, stung by her comments. He didn’t know much about her but he had assumed she had done that before. She was so amazing that night that he just thought she had had some practice at this.

“I thought there must have been some connection there. Some feeling that made me do what I did with you, but I was wrong. I was so very wrong.”

Even as the words fell from her lips she was mentally cursing herself. ‘Way to go Joey, this is not why you came in here. She watched him walk quickly by her to exit his own office. He didn’t even look at her on his way out. He didn’t even open his mouth to curse her. He just left defeated and right now all she could think about was apologizing.

When he entered a few minutes later with coffee cup in hand and saw her there he kept a stern face. He had spent the minutes out of his office thinking about why that statement hurt him. Why should it have hurt him? This was just a one night stand after all, right?

He leaned on the wooden doorframe waiting to hear what she had to say.

She opened her mouth to gush apologies but she couldn’t get them out. This was just a one night stand to him, right? This was something he had probably done many times before so why would her statement hurt him? She didn’t need to apologize, but she did need to say something.

“You have your own office?” She said as she walked over to his empty bookshelf and sighed. “You have been here all of a few minutes and you have your own office? I have been here for 2 years. Who the hell do I have to sleep with around here to get my own office?”

He walked to his desk and laughed.

“I don’t think I can get you your own office, but you sure can share mine,” he said with a grin as he cocked an eyebrow.

She tried to act offended as she left his office, even tried for open her mouth to say something, but all her heart would let her do was smile. Maybe she could get through this after all.