Title: Girl From Ipanema
Author: juxtaposed
Rating: PG
Category: Vignette
Pairing: Josh/Donna
Spoilers: post-ep to “Holy Night”
Disclaimer: All characters are property of Aaron Sorkin, NBC, Warner Brothers and The West Wing, and are used without permission, without intent to profit. Song lyrics are from “Adam and Eve” by Ani DiFranco, and are also used without permission.
Archiving: Yes, just let me know. You can find this and my other works online at www.geocities.com/juxtaposed666
Notes: This wouldn’t go away. I tried, tried, tried to get it to leave me alone, but well, here it is. It’s been stewing for weeks, in many different forms. I had to finally let it run free.
Feedback: Appreciated at [email protected]
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Girl From Ipanema
tonight you stooped to my level
i am your mangy little whore
you are trying to find your underwear
and then your socks and then the door
and you're trying to find a reason
why you have to leave
i know it's 'cuz you think you're adam
and you think i'm eve
December 24th – early morning
For five years I’ve wondered, and now I know.
Josh Lyman is amazing in bed. He’s all about the little details. He has great stamina, a good sense of humor, and he knows how to use his hands. And what that man can do with his mouth…
But, well, after five years of foreplay, the sex better damn well be amazing.
Josh and I have history, and while I’ve wanted him for an unbelievably long time, there’s more that I want from him than sex. We’re all about intellectual foreplay, and it’s been five years dancing towards this inevitable night.
Five years of teasing, jealousy, friendship, fear. We’ve rescued each other, supported each other. We’ve laughed together, shared sandwiches and hotel rooms and late-night phone calls across multiple time zones. We’ve shared everything, except our feelings and our bodies.
Scratch that. We’ve shared everything, except our feelings. I won’t say I love Josh, but I will say that I could love Josh. But what Josh wants from me, I won’t even hazard to guess.
And now it’s four fifteen in the morning, on Christmas Eve no less, and I’m listening to him shuffle around my darkened bedroom, most likely looking for his boxer shorts. A thud, and a muttered curse. I can tell from the movement of his shadow on my ceiling that he just ran into the dresser.
He thinks I’m asleep. And I have the feeling that he’s trying to escape.
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you rhapsodize about beauty
and my eyes glaze
everything that i love is ugly
i mean really, you would be amazed
December 23rd – late evening
I shake snow off my scarf as I unwind it from my shoulders and smile at the guard as I pass through the lobby; my bag hoisted over one shoulder. It was incredibly sweet of Leo to get me the ride on the news chopper, and not his fault the trip was cancelled because the storm was getting worse.
It’s after eleven, but I’m sure Josh is still in his office. When I left a couple hours ago, he had a phone in each hand and didn’t look like he was planning on slowing down any time soon.
I drop my bags and coat next to my desk, and I hear Josh slam down the receiver.
I lean against the doorjamb, crossing one ankle over the other. “Any luck?”
He whirls his chair around. “Jesus, don’t sneak up on me like that! You trying to give me a heart attack?”
“Sorry.” I cross into his office and drop into a chair, propping my feet up on his desk. Josh runs a hand through his hair, making it stick up even more, before slumping back into his chair and rubbing his eyes.
“What are you doing here, anyway? I thought Leo sent you off. And get your dirty feet off my desk.”
“Weather was too bad. They cancelled the trip.” I shrug and snag a chocolate from a bowl on the edge of his desk, and think about how much older he suddenly looks. “I’ll go tomorrow. Jack’s okay with it. There’re two other couples up there. He has people to hang out with.” I see Josh’s eyebrows raise at the phrase “other couples,” but I ignore it and pop the chocolate in my mouth.
He watches me chew for a minute, leaning forward with his arms on his desk, like he’s waiting for me to say something else. I just tap my snowy boots against his desk and wait him out. “So, did you want to go to the Hawk and Dove, then?”
‘Anything.’ I drop my feet down to the floor. “Sure. We’ve had a good year. We deserve to get drunk, right?”
He smiles slightly, but a sudden weight seems to land on his shoulders, and he slumps back in his chair. I watch him stare at a spot on the floor for a moment.
“Josh?”
He looks up, and his eyes seem slightly haunted. “Yeah, let’s go.”
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just do me a favor
it's the least that you can do
just don't treat me like i am
something that happened to you
Two Hours Later
“We did something really horrible, Donna,” he whispers in my ear as his fingers trail up and down my neck.
He’s had five beers already, way over his limit, and he’s apparently hit his confessional-drunk phase. I’ve been doing tequila shooters for almost two hours, so the urgency of his voice doesn’t really hit me.
I lean my side against the bar and reach my arms back to pull him a little tighter behind me. “We’ve been getting drunk, Josh. What’s so horrible about that? It’s Christmas, we’re entitled.”
“Not you and me. Us. The Administration. Horrible.” He’s whispering against my neck now, and I’m leaning my head back on his shoulder. It’s been a really long time since I’ve been with a man. I know Josh thinks I’ve been sleeping with Jack, and I haven’t bothered to tell him differently, but this trip was going to be “the trip.” So I’m hearing Josh’s words, but the meaning isn’t really coming through when all I can think about is his lips on my ear and the heat pooling inside me from his breath on my neck.
“Mmmhhh. That’s too bad.” His fingers trail across my cheek, and I turn my head slightly to flick his fingertip with my tongue. “You wanna get out of here?” My words surprise me, but I don’t apologize. Drunk or sober, I’ve wanted Josh for a long time, and I know an opportunity when I see one.
His hands drop to my sides, and I hear his exhale of breath. “Yeah. You bet."
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you put a tiny pinprick
in my big red balloon
and as i slowly start to exhale
that's when you leave the room
i did not design this game
i did not name the stakes
i just happen to like apples
and i am not afraid of snakes
December 24th – early morning
I listen to him for a few more moments, and when the door creaks, I roll over and prop my head on my arm, my hair spilling over my shoulder. “Find your boxers, Josh?” He turns in the doorway, shoes and pants in his arms, wearing only his boxers and dress shirt. “I see you did find them. Good.” I roll back over and tuck one arm under my head.
“Donna…”
“Go on, Josh. I’m sure the country needs you.”
I stare at the wall, and the loudest sound in the room is his breathing. It seems like I lay there for hours, listening to him breathe, before he whispers, “Are you coming in today?”
“Yeah. I’ll be in for a couple hours before I leave.”
Silence. Click.
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i am truly sorry about all this
i envy your ignorance
i hear that it's bliss
December 24th - morning
There is light slanting through a crack in Josh’s office door when I drop my bags next to my desk at 7:30 am. The West Wing is still quiet, as it probably will be all day, and the clack of Josh pounding furiously on his keyboard is the loudest sound I hear. Maybe it seems so loud because I’m so unused to hearing Josh type.
I sit at my desk, boot up my computer, sip my coffee and wager with myself how Josh will deal with the fact that he tried to sneak out of my apartment in the middle of the night.
He could: A) Pretend the whole thing never happened and order me around like normal. B) Call me into his office, make up a lame excuse and be nice to me for a few days. C) Call me into his office, close the door and fuck me across his desk.
If I’ve learned one thing in the last five years, it’s to never expect anything rational from Josh.
He’s still typing, so I joint down messages from my voicemail, print out his schedule and answer a few emails. He keeps typing.
Twenty minutes later, the odds have grown to 3:1 in favor of “pretend it never happened” when the typing finally ceases and Josh bellows “DONNA!”
It took him a while to get his ducks in a row, and now I’m convinced he’s going to be a complete and utter juvenile asshole about the whole thing and pretend he didn’t get drunk and bang his secretary. His best friend. Whatever.
He may be brilliant and sexy, but he can also be a complete idiot. And if he’s going to be a idiot, then no matter what I want from him, I’m not going to give him any ammunition to use against me.
I’m positive that right now he’s sitting in his office, waiting for me to come in with the pissed-girly attitude his immaturity usually produces in women, so he can play the victim and make this into my fault. There’s a rock in my stomach, but I keep my cool. If he wants to blow it off, I can too. I said I could love Josh. I never said I did.
He’s looking at his computer screen, and his face is murder. I push the door open silently, lean against his doorjamb and wait for him to notice me. He yells again. “Dammit, Donna!”
“Did you want something, Josh?” My voice is calm, and his head snaps up at my words.
“Jesus, Donna, don’t scare me like that. Don’t you knock?”
“I would have, but I didn’t want to keep you waiting.” I drop a stack of files onto his desk, and a piece of paper onto his keyboard. “Here’s your schedule, as it were, and the files for the thing with Hookman and Baker this morning. That’s really all you have today.”
“Oh, right. I, um, wanted to talk to you.”
Really? Interesting. I lean on his desk. “Oh, what about?”
He moves around me to close the door, and leans his back against the wood, and he suddenly has the classic “cat-that-ate-the-canary” grin on his face.
“Well, I just want you to know that what happened last night can never happen again.” He pauses, like he’s waiting for something. Like he wants me to yell, or slap him, and while I want to punch him in the gut and wipe that self-satisfied smirk off his face, I keep leaning, stay casual.
“Okay.”
He blinks. “Because, you know, it’s really unprofessional.”
“Fine. I think I can restrain myself.”
He stares at me for a moment, and I push off the desk with my hip, leaning towards him slightly. “Ah, well, good. Because I wouldn’t want things to be weird.”
“Why would they be weird, Josh?” I asked, taking a step closer, my voice dropping to a husky whisper. “Because you seduced me in a bar and I let you? Because I took you to my apartment and let you fuck me? Because you bolted in the middle of the night? Is that why things could be weird?” He licks his lips slightly, and I can see that I’m making him nervous. Turns out I didn’t have to punch him to get that look off his face. Seductress Donna did it much more effectively.
“Um, well, ah…” If it was possible, I think at this point Josh would have melted into a puddle and slid under the door if it meant he could get away from me.
I put my lips next to his ear. “Don’t worry. There’s no reason for it to get weird.” I step back and smile brightly at him. “Right?”
“Um, yeah, right…” He looks like he just took a baseball to the head, and I see that as my sign to exit.
“Well, if you don’t need anything else, I’m going to head out. Jack’s waiting for me.” His eyes widen slightly. Hell yes, Jack is waiting for me. And Josh Lyman can take a long walk off a short pier.
“Sure, okay. Have a good time.” He moves from in front of the door, always a few careful steps away from me, and sits back in his chair. “See you in a few days.”
I put my coat on, and pick up my bags, and head through the bullpen. And because it’s so quiet, the sound carries when Josh mutters, “Well, shit…”
‘Nope, not weird at all.’ I think, as I start whistling “Girl From Ipanema” as I head through the lobby. ‘Not weird at all.’
so i let go of the ratio
of things said to things heard
and i leave you to your garden
and the beauty you preferred
and i wonder what of this
will have meaning for you
when you've left it all behind
i guess i'll even wonder
if you meant it at the time
-FIN-
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