Political Expediency (Print)

Political Expediency
Mikala Ash
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2009, 2018 Mikala Ash
Excerpt from A Political Animal

...she recalled her first love. He'd stayed with her for a whole weekend. Her second boyfriend hadn't had much more loyalty or fidelity either. He dumped her after a month. Then there was the professor at college. He lasted a semester before getting a teaching position in the US and leaving her with nothing but a farewell written hastily in the fly-leaf of his latest book.

Then she'd met Kelvin.

He was such a gentleman. Maybe that was why she loved him. He'd never made a pass at her. The times they had come in close physical proximity, so close to kissing, he'd pulled back.

She respected him for that.

She choked back a laugh when she thought of the crusty old politicians and the wily journalists who'd chatted her up at the member's bar, trying to get some dirt on Kelvin. Hell! She could've fucked her way through Canberra if she'd taken them all up on it.

Men.

Only Kelvin redeemed them in her eyes. But she had to forget him once and for all. No more fantasies. Last night would be her last.

So, what to do?

"I've got three choices," she said to the road stretching out before her. "One, be celibate, but I've had enough of that. Two, become a sexual predator, which will be a lot of fun, or three, find a loyal, trustworthy man without a load of baggage." Right. Where was she going to find a nice thirty-something hunk with no baggage?

"So. Number two it is." She laughed, thinking of her favorite romance novel. "I'll be the lusty rake preying on the helpless opposite sex. I'll be the modern day female Mr. Wickham!"

What an idea. She sighed deeply. It would be easier said than done to be a twenty-first century Mae West. I'll have to lose a bit of weight to be a femme fatale. Serena took another long, deep breath. The headache that had been developing since Priscilla's bombshell was asserting itself once again, creating a dull, persistent thrumming inside her brain.

Serena rubbed her aching eyes. Looking back up she swerved to avoid a suicidal sheep that had jumped into her path. Adrenaline flowed hotly through her veins and she took the skidding car careering down a dusty side road. The car bounced wildly over the dry corrugated trac, and it took all her skill to keep it under control. Her foot, however, didn't leave the accelerator and she didn't slow down one jot.

She made no attempt to stop or turn back either. It didn't matter to her where this track actually led. She needed somewhere to hide and give herself time to think.

For another twenty minutes the dry and dusty Australian bush swept past. Behind the curtain of tall eucalypt trees were vast pastures, filled with cattle, sheep and kangaroos. The heartland of the country in which she hoped to find the peace and quiet she so desperately needed.

What was that?

Something black and fast was running between the trees parallel with the road. Was it a kangaroo? No, it was definitely running. A dingo? No, it was too big and anyway, it was black -- dingoes were red, weren't they?

It was carrying something in its mouth. Was that a sheep? The sheep?

She braked. The car skidded to a stop. A cloud of dust swirled around her car. The thing rushing through the brush disappeared.

Now I'm seeing things. I'm going crazy. She lowered her head and rested her forehead on the steering wheel. I need to find another motel, get a room and bury my head in a pillow for a week.

A week is a long time in politics they say. Well, they were right. It felt like an eternity. The five days between Priscilla's shocking announcement and Kelvin's resignation had been the worst in her whole life. Her friends had dropped her, getting themselves interviewed on prime time, their thirty seconds of fame. "Oh, yes. Serena is always staying late at Kelvin's office..." "I never saw them, you know, kiss, but they were always standing close, whispering to each other, joking. They were just good friends. You know what I mean?"

Just good friends? Tabloid fodder if ever there was, and that meant the kiss of death in politics.

Her mobile rang. She knew it was Kelvin. Fighting the tears, she started the car but, instead of setting off again, she lowered her head to the steering wheel and listened to the phone's persistent tune.

She couldn't speak to him. She simply couldn't face him. It would be a mistake to be seen with him again. Not that it mattered now so much. But to be the cause of his political death, albeit unwittingly, was just too much to bear. Best to just slink away to lick her wounds, never to be seen again.

She raised her head from the steering wheel. The road ahead was clear, but something black scuttled through the trees to her right. She turned her head, but the shape always seemed to stay at the edge of her vision. She shivered. This place was spooky.

She resumed driving, slowly at first but as she realized the shadowy figure seemed to keep pace, she accelerated. She was driving too fast now. The spitting of gravel beneath her wheels and the thump of larger rocks on the underside of the car confirmed it.

Serena knew it was stupid to be spooked like this by a mere animal. She was in an amour-plated government car, for goodness sake! She smiled when she realized she technically no longer had permission to drive it. The car pool would want it back.

I'll return it to the first government office I come to, she promised. Though when or where that might happen, she couldn't tell.

The issue of Kelvin and her use of the car had been their first foray into the media spotlight. Serena and Kelvin had broken convention. Instead of using the usual drivers that every politician demanded as a sign of status, she had insisted she drive him everywhere. Serena had to receive anti-terrorist training to do so, but she'd impressed the Federal Police instructors with her innate ability.

Her graduation from the Federal Police Training Academy earned her a full two-page spread in a women's magazine. It raised her and Kelvin's profile a hundredfold. She was a woman in a man's world. A woman who could handle a high performance vehicle as well as a Glock nine-mm pistol and a submachine gun was not someone to be trifled with.

Kelvin had been delighted as it allowed them to talk candidly and plan their press strategies in private. It also gave Priscilla the perfect ammunition. "Alone in the car, what did they really get up to?" one tabloid had so innocently and disastrously asked.

It had been foolish, Serena knew, but she loved those long drives between cities, plotting their next move, orchestrating their next media blitz. It felt so intimate, so special.

"Oops!" The road took a sudden turn. She was going way too fast, but she steered through it just as her instructors had taught her. They'd be proud of her.

"Slow down," she yelled at herself but she couldn't lift her foot off the accelerator. Trees flashed past her and still the shape in the corner of her eye kept pace.

Something dropped from the overhanging trees onto the narrow road in front of her. She braked savagely and the car went into a sideways slide before coming to a halt. She looked up expecting to see the great hulk of the beast she'd glimpsed towering over her bonnet.

But there was nothing in front of her except the swirling cloud of red and brown dust. Her heart thudding against her ribs, icy spears of fear stabbing at her gut, she straightened the car and drove on. She wanted to get back to the main road, but the deep gullies on either side of the track made it too narrow to turn around. She had to find somewhere the track widened so she could make a U-turn.

She gained pace now, glancing furtively from one side to the next to see if the shadow was following her. She was well and truly spooked. Not more than five kilometers down the road she rounded another bend.

"Oh, shit!" She braked and skidded to a halt, and once again a cloud of dust overtook her.

Standing in the middle of the road was a blond Adonis. He was naked to the waist, the dappled sunlight speckling his bronzed torso and gleaming off the broad expanse of his chest.

"Oh, my..."