Impressing the Press
“Lyle Landry, as I live and breathe. Look at you here.”
“Hello, Camille.”
“Whatever happened to that daughter of yours?”
“She’s around,” Lyle said nervously.
“That’s pretty much what I’ve been hearing, too,” Camille Watson said. “The way I hear it, your daughter’s been all around town.”
“That’s not true, Camille, and you know it. Tabitha’s a good girl.”
“The way I hear it,” the political reporter said, “it’s more like your daughter is a good time girl.”
“Come on, Camille.”
“Hey, I’m just trying to find out what’s going on but if you don’t want to talk to me, that’s fine. I’m sure there are plenty of people who’d be willing to do that.”
Yeah right, Lyle thought, like just about anybody from the other side of the political aisle and Camille would be right there to listen to whatever it was those hacks had to say.
“You sure you don’t have something to say?”
“’Fraid not, Camille.”
“Too bad, and here I was hoping that you and I could find something to talk about, but I suppose I’ll just have to find someone else I could talk to. See you around, Lyle.”
The governor watched the political reporter walk off and he couldn’t help telling himself something he already knew. The woman was going to be trouble. There was no doubt about that.
Lyle picked up his phone and he dialed his chief of staff. “You’ll never guess who I just ran into,” he said.
“Who?” Deke asked.
“Camille Watson.”
Even over the phone, Lyle could hear Deke’s voice tighten. “Yeah,” Deke said, “what’d she want?”
“I’m not sure but I think she’s got it in her mind to do a hatchet piece on my daughter.”
“Figures. What’d you tell her?”
“I didn’t tell her nothing but Lyle, you know, if she’s got it in her mind to do a story like that, there’s not a damned thing that you or me or anyone else can do to stop her.”
“Yeah,” Deke said dejectedly, “I know.”
“So what are we going to do about her?”
“I don’t know. Let me think about it.”
“Sure thing, Deke, but whatever we’re going to do, we need to do it fast.”
It was the next day when Deke strode into his boss’s office. “I think I got something,” he announced.
“You think you got something about what?”
“I think I got the answer to our favorite, little political reporter.”
“Camille Watson. What about her?”
“I think I know how to deal with her once and for all.”
“Yeah, and how’s that?”
“Well first, you’re going to have to invite her here to lunch.”
“Come on, Deke. I don’t even like the woman.”
“You know what? I don’t think she likes you either but that’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
Deke pulled a vial from his pocket. “Once you got her here, I want you to slip this in her drink.”
Lyle Landry took the vial. “What is it?”
“It’s a drug.”
“I can see that. What’s it do?”
“Like I said, it’s the answer to all our problems,” and that’s when Deke explained exactly what he meant.
The next day, Camille Watson was ushered into the governor’s office. “Governor Landry,” the reporter smirked, “after what happened last night, I didn’t think we’d be talking again so soon.”
“I’ll admit you threw me for a loop there. It was the talk about my daughter, you know, but I’m sure you believe as I do that one’s children should be off limits. I mean it’s fine for opponents to do battle, but it shouldn’t involve the other person’s children now, should it?”
“Of course,” the reporter said.
It wasn’t like Lyle Landry believed her. Camille had written enough pieces in the past that said those words were just a lie but then Lyle wasn’t about to call her on it. “I’m glad we can agree then,” the man said, “but that’s not why I asked you to lunch.”
The reporter took a bite from her salad. “Why did you ask me to lunch?”
“It’s no secret that you and I come from opposite sides of the political aisle. I can respect that and I’m hoping you can as well.”
“You still haven’t asked me why you invited me here.”
“I’d like to come to an understanding. If we can have some measure of civility—”
“I can be civil but I’m only one person.”
Lyle took a bite from the chicken before him. “That’s true,” he said, “but you talk to the other side and you’re respected by both sides. What you say carries weight.”
Camille laughed. “Only because both sides worry about what I might say.”
“Well there is that, but I think the other side is perhaps a little less worried.”
Camille stabbed her salad with her fork. “Are you saying I’m some kind of political hack,” she said in a terse voice.
Lyle Landry smiled. “Not at all. I think you can skewer both sides equally well if it pleases you. I think you just take more enjoyment when you’re sticking it to my side.”
Now it was Camille’s turn to smile. “I think you’re right there, Governor,” she said.
“And that’s why I invited you to lunch. To see if we might come to some sort of agreement.”
Camille just smiled. “We’ll see,” she said.
It wasn’t like they’d come to any agreement. In fact, Lyle Landry would have been surprised if they had. It was verbal sparring back and forth and by the time it was over, he was sick and tired of all of the bullshit. By the time it was over, he was just glad to be rid of the bitch.
“So how’d it go,” Deke asked when the governor finally returned to his office.
“I really hate that bitch.”
“I kind of figured as much but really, that wasn’t the point of the exercise. How’d it go?”
“It went fine.”
“And by that you mean ...”
“By that I mean it went fine. I did what I had to do.”
“Excellent. Then we’ll wait and see what happens next.”
About the same time, Camille Watson was arriving back at her desk. She still had no idea why the governor had asked to meet with her. There was no way she was buying any of his bull shit. This wasn’t about being nicey nice, but if that wasn’t what it was about, then what was it about?
Camille unlocked her computer and she stared at the screen. She had another editorial to write.
She stared at the screen. Damn it. What had the man wanted? She opened a file and she just sat there. What was she going to write about. Her fingers lingered over the keys before she finally typed out a title. “No More Free Lunches,” her title said. She wasn’t sure what she was going to write next but at least that was a start.
“Did you see Camille’s latest editorial?” Deke asked.
Lyle Landry couldn’t help but scowl. “You mean the one about no free lunches? Yeah, I saw it. I guess no good deed goes unpunished.”
“What’d you think of it?”
“What do you mean what’d I think of it?”
“It’s not that hard a question to answer. I meant what’d you think of it?”
“It’s hardly the worst thing she’s ever written about us,” the governor said. “Not all that damning at all. I mean so I had lunch with her. Big fucking deal. If anything, she kind of skewers herself as well for attending.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“So why’d you ask?”
“I think you should invite her back.”
“Why?”
“Because I think you should. Invite her back for something other than lunch. How about coffee.”
“You really think so?”
“Yeah. I really think so.”
At just that moment, Camille Watson was sitting in her office and she was looking at her editorial and the more she looked at it, the less happy she got. She remembered working on this editorial. She’d worked hard on it or at least she thought she had, but now, now with the dawn of a new day, she was looking at it and she couldn’t help but notice places where the editorial was deficient. It could have been better, she told herself. It could have been so much better.
Her phone rang and Camille gratefully reached for the phone. At least this call would give her a momentary respite from her grousing over her own editorial. “Camille Watson,” she said.
“Ms. Watson, this is Governor Landry.”
Camille’s hand tightened on the receiver. What was the governor doing calling her, she wondered. “Yes, Governor,” she said.
“I was wondering if you might join me for coffee this morning in my office.”
Camille couldn’t help but wonder what was going on here. Why was the governor asking her to join him in his office?
“Ms. Watson?”
“Yes.”
“I was wondering if you were still there.”
“I’m still here.”
“So can I expect you to join me here?”
There was something wrong with this, Camille told herself. This just wasn’t right and yet, she couldn’t seem to tell herself why.
“Ms. Watson?”
“Yes. I mean yes, I’ll be there. What time?”
“How’s 10:30 sound?”
“10:30 would be fine.”
“All right. I’ll seen you then,” and with that, the line went dead.
Camille sat in her office and she still couldn’t understand it. Just why the heck had he asked her to come to his office. It wasn’t like they were friends or anything like that so not why had he asked her there and more to the point, why had she agreed.
She was still asking herself that when she was ushered into the governor’s office.
“You’re on time,” the governor observed. “I like that.”
Camille nodded. She wasn’t sure what to say to that.
“Won’t you have a seat?”
The coffee was already laid out on a silver tray, Camille observed. Figured, Camille thought. A silver tray just seemed so elitist.
“Would you like me to pour?” the governor asked.
“Sure.”
The man poured a cup for her and then a cup for him. “There’s cream there if you want it.”
Camille reached for the cream. The governor took his coffee black, she noticed but that wasn’t the way she took it.
“So, would you tell me your thoughts about life around the capitol?”
Camille was confused. Thoughts on life around the capitol. What exactly did he want from her.
“Camille?”
“What?”
“I was asking what you thought about life around the capitol. Actually, I was thinking more about the night life. What do you think about that?”
“The night life?”
“You do go out at night, don’t you?”
Sure, she went out. Well, sometimes, it was work stuff, like to political events and fund raisers and the like but that wasn’t all it was.
“You do go out at night?” the governor asked again.
Yeah, she went out, Camille told herself, but something was wrong here. She ... this shouldn’t be about ... why were they talking about her.
“You should go out more,” the governor said. “I worry about you. You should get out and meet more people.”
She should get out and meet more people, Camille told herself.
She should ...
And by the time she made it back to her office, there was one thing that kept running through her mind. What the fuck had that been about and yet anytime she tried to think about anything, she kept thinking about what had happened in the governor’s office.
It was getting on around mid-afternoon when a man barged into her office. “Watson,” the man bellowed. “Where the hell’s that god-damned editorial?”
“W-what?”
“The editorial. Where is it? The boys in production say you haven’t turned it in yet.”
“I-I’m still working on it,” she stammered.
“You realize it was due a half hour ago.”
Camille looked at the clock and she realized her editor was right. Where the hell had all the time gone?
“When can you have it done?”
“I ... I ... I—”
“I don’t want to hear you say I, I, I,” the man bellowed. I want to know when I’m going to get my editorial.”
“Soon.”
“How soon?”
“Um. Within the hour?”
“Not good enough. Make it in the next half hour and we’ll call that good. How’s that sound?”
“I’ll have it ready, sir.”
“Good. I’ll go down and tell the guys in production but you better have it ready and not one minute later. You got that.”
“I got it, sir.”
Her editor stood there for a moment longer as if he was trying to determine if she really did get it and when he was sure that she had, he gave her a curt nod and he stormed out of her office and it was only then that Camille turned to look at her computer.
She looked at the blank screen. She hadn’t done a damned thing. She knew what she’d planned to do. She’d planned to share whatever she’d learned at her talk with the governor but she hadn’t learned anything and when she looked at her notebook, her notebook was empty.
What the hell was she going to do?
The answer was obvious, of course. There was only one thing she could do. She opened her file of discarded editorials. It was stuff she hadn’t deemed to be good enough but at least they were written. She opened the files and she hoped that one of them would work.
But even that wasn’t as easy as she’d thought it would be. She had to look through the various editorials. She had to make sure they didn’t contain information that was right at the time they’d been written but was no longer right now. She had to at least give them one quick once over.
The only thing was they were so boring and she just didn’t want to read them.
Camille shook her head. How could they be boring? This was her job and she loved her job. Politics was her life but for some reason ...
For some reason, all of these stupid editorials were so boring and tedious.
She looked at the clock on her computer. Damn. She only had ten minutes.
She was down to three of them. All she had to do was decide which one she was going to send.
This was stupid. It wasn’t like she even cared anymore. Any of them would do. She looked at the clock on her computer and she realized she was out of time. All she had to do was pick one.
It was down to eeny meeny minie moe. She didn’t really care anymore. She just picked one and she sent it off and then she shut down her computer.
She went out to the department secretary. “I’m not feeling well,” she announced. “I think I need to go home and rest.”
“Would you like me to let Mr. Robertson know?”
“Sure,” Camille readily agreed. Actually, she didn’t much care who knew she was going home early. All she knew was she wanted to get out of that stuffy newspaper office.
But as it turned out, she didn’t make it all the way home, at least, she didn’t make it home right away. Instead, she made it to the mall and suddenly, she had this thought. Maybe the reason she didn’t go out that much was that she didn’t have anything cool to wear.
She tried to tell herself that that wasn’t the case but it didn’t really matter. She spent the rest of the day shopping for something cool to wear when she went out at night.
As much as she wanted to, Camille didn’t go out that night. She had work the next day, she told herself and she had a staff meeting at eight o’clock and the last thing she needed was to be dragging herself in late for something like that so as much as she wanted to go out and as much as she wanted to wear her new dress, she didn’t go out.
And even so, she still almost missed the staff meeting. It was just that it was so hard to get out of bed and even when she did pull herself out of bed, she found herself thinking that she didn’t really want to go to work. Everything, it seemed was taking longer. Her shower was taking longer. Getting dressed was taking longer. Getting ready for the day. Everything was taking longer and Camille knew why. She just didn’t want to go to work.
But she went and she made it even if she was only just barely on time.
Michael Robinson looked at his editorial staff and it seemed for a moment as if he fixed Camille with a harder stare before he addressed the group. “People,” he said, “I know times are tough and nowhere are they tougher than in the newspaper industry. That having been said, I must commend some of you for the outstanding work you’ve done to help this paper continue to be the beacon that it’s been in our community.”
It wasn’t exactly back slapping per se but there were definitely some nods of approval from the editorial staff.
“That having been said,” the editor in chief said, “I think there are definitely some places where we can pick up the pace a bit so to speak.”
Camille tried to stay engaged with what it was her editor was saying but for some reason, it just seemed so boring. She knew she should be interested but she also knew she wasn’t.
The meeting finally and mercifully came to an end and it was only then as the others were filing out of the room that the editor in chief stopped her. “Camille,” he said, “I’d like you to stay behind.”
Camille nodded and she waited listlessly as the others filed out of the room.
“I read your editorial yesterday,” her boss began. “It was ... how should I put this ... it wasn’t up to the standards that we’ve come to expect from you.”
It wasn’t like this was any great surprise to her. She knew she’d been falling down the past few days. “I know,” she mumbled.
“I don’t want a ‘I know’ her boss said. I want to know that this is going to get better.”
“It will,” Camille said.
“It had better,” the man said. “You were brought in here because you were supposed to be good at what you did and you were brought in here because your expertise was in an area where we were lacking. Up until now, your work has been exemplary.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“If there’s something wrong, I want to know about it. Is there something wrong?”
Camille shook her head. There was nothing wrong. Well, nothing except that she found all this political stuff so incredibly boring but she couldn’t tell her editor that.
“All right then. Get back to work, and I want to see something good today. Okay?”
Camille nodded.
“We’re all counting on you. Remember that. This is a team around here. Okay?”
Camille nodded again. She knew that, she told her boss.
“Okay then. Go.”
Camille went although she had no idea what she was going to do next but almost as soon as she entered her office, her phone rang. She picked it up. “This is Camille Watson.”
“Camille. How’s it going? This is Governor Landry.”
“Oh hi,” she said. This was cool. He was a political guy and she was a political reporter. Talking with him was something she should actually be doing.
“I was wondering if you’d like to come over to my office for coffee again.”
“I’d love to but they’re riding me pretty hard over here. I have to produce something better than what I did yesterday.”
“What was wrong with what you produced yesterday?”
Now that was a good point. Now that the governor had mentioned it, Camille couldn’t recall her boss saying what was wrong with what she’d produced the day before.
“Camille?”
“Huh.”
“Do you know what was wrong with what you produced yesterday?”
Camille shook her head and then she realized that the man on the other end of the phone couldn’t see her. “No,” she said. “No. I don’t know.”
“Then why don’t you come over here and maybe we can help each other out.”
“Help each other out?”
“You need to talk to someone in politics. That would be me, and maybe I can give you something you can use.”
That sounded perfect, Camille thought.
“Camille?”
“Hmm?”
“Are you going to come over?”
“I can be over there in fifteen minutes.”
“Excellent. Then I’ll see you then,” and with that, the line went dead.
“Well?”
Lyle Landry looked up at his Chief of Staff. “She says she’s on her way over.”
“Excellent.”
“You’re sure this is going to work.”
“It’s already working but after today, Camille Watson isn’t going to be a problem ever again.”
“You’re pretty sure of yourself.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“I hope so because if you’re wrong, it’s going to be both of our asses.”
“Would you lighten up? I’m not wrong.”
“I really hope so.”
It took Camille Watson longer than the fifteen minutes she’d promised to get there but no one it seemed was caring how long it took. “Ms. Watson,” the governor said when she finally arrived. “How nice to see you again.”
“Hi.”
It wasn’t long before the governor had poured them some coffee. Black for him as before and hers with cream, again as before.
“Of course, Ms. Watson sounds so formal. I think we know each other better than that. How about I call you Cammie instead.”
The woman’s brow furrowed. “But ... but ... but I don’t—”
“Oh I know what you’re going to say. You always go by Camille but come on. That sounds so stuffy, doesn’t it?”
“I guess.”
“So Cammie’s a much better name for you, isn’t it?”
Cammie nodded. Cammie was a much better name for her.
“Cammie’s such a light and fluffy name. It’s kind of like your mind. Light and fluffy and without a care in the world.”
That was exactly who she was, Cammie realized.
“I have a deal for you,” the governor said.
“A deal for me?”
“I understand you’re having some problems on the job. I understand you’re having problems writing your editorials.”
“They’re so hard,” Cammie complained, “and I keep thinking about ...”
“You keep thinking about what?”
Cammie didn’t answer right away but then she sighed. “I keep thinking about sex,” she said.
“It’s only natural,” the governor said. “A hot girl like you, you must want sex all the time.”
“All the time,” Cammie agreed.
“And I’ll bet when you can’t get it when you want it, it must be so frustrating.”
“It is,” Cammie agreed. She wasn’t sure she’d been thinking that way before but now that he’d reminded her of it, she seemed to remember that that was exactly the way she was.
The Governor held up a flash drive. “What I’m offering you is this. Do you know what’s on this drive, Cammie?”
Cammie shook her head.
“What’s on this drive Cammie are the editorials you’ll need to submit for the next two weeks, all written by my staff. All you have to do is submit them as if they were your own and then you won’t have to worry about writing them yourself and do you know what that means?”
Cammie shook her head.
“It means you’ll have all the time in the world to think about more important things like sex, sex and more sex.”
She liked thinking about sex, Cammie told herself.
“So what about it? Do you want what we have to offer?”
Cammie looked at the flash drive in the man’s hand. There was something wrong with the offer. She knew that but she also knew what she wanted. It wasn’t her fault that she wanted sex all the time. No, she didn’t just want it. She needed it.
“Well?” the man asked.
“I’ll take it.”
“Yes well, it’s not quite so simple as that.”
“It’s not?”
“I’m taking quite a chance doing this,” the man said. “If anyone were to find about this, my job would be in jeopardy. You have to understand that.”
Well yes, when he put it that way, she could totally understand that.
“I’m going to need a little something from you as well, something that you wouldn’t want other people to find out about you.”
“Like what?”
“Well like for instance, I’m sure you wouldn’t want everyone to know what a slut you really were. It would after all have an adverse impact on your reputation if the politicians knew that all they had to do to get on your good side was to stick their cocks in your pussy.”
Yeah, Cammie thought. She could totally see that. Of course, as horny as she was, she’d totally give herself over to any man who wanted to stick a dick inside her, but no, she wouldn’t want just anyone knowing that.
“So here’s the deal. You show me just how much you like fucking my cock and then I won’t tell on you just so long as you don’t tell on me.”
She hadn’t realized it until right then but now that the deal had been offered, Cammie realized that was exactly the kind of deal she’d hoped he’d make.
“So what about it? Do we have a deal?”
She was certainly coming out ahead on this deal, Cammie thought, but she wasn’t going to tell the governor that. “I think we have a deal,” she said even as she tried to keep the excitement out of her voice.
“Well all right then. Time to get to it.”
Cammie knew what that meant and she couldn’t wait. She slid off of the sofa and then she pushed her way between the governor’s knees. “First things first,” she said even as her hands pawed at his zipper. “I think we need to see what you have in here.”
The governor moaned as this woman who at one time been a pain in his butt slowly extracted his cock from his pants.
She looked up at him. “Governor,” she purred. “You’ve been holding out on me. You never told me what a big cock you have.”
The governor was still trying to think of a snappy comeback to that when Cammie let her mouth slide down around his cock and suddenly, coming up with a snappy comeback wasn’t nearly as important as the feel of that mouth around his cock.
“Mmm,” Cammie moaned as her mouth took the man’s cock even deeper.
Damn, Lyle Landry thought. It had been like forever since his wife had done this for him and now here was this woman sucking his cock not just because she felt obliged to but because it was something she really wanted to do.
Fuck!
“Mmm,” the woman moaned and she pulled her mouth free with a wet, little plop. “I really like that.”
“Me, too,” the man groaned.
“But you know what I really want?”
“What?”
“I want you to cum in my mouth.”
“Really?”
Cammie nodded. “I want you to cum in my mouth, but if you do, you have to promise me something. You have to promise me that you’ll fuck me in my pussy, too, because it wouldn’t be fair if you got off and I didn’t, so do you promise?”
“Yeah.”
“No. I mean do you really promise?”
“Yeah,” the man said. “I really promise.”
“Okay then, but only because you promised,” and with that, Cammie’s mouth dove onto the man’s cock.
“Oh fuck,” the man groaned and then he groaned again. Fuck that was good. Fuck that was so fucking good. Fu-u-u-u-uck.
It almost came on him without warning but suddenly there he was, cumming inside Cammie’s mouth and there she was, swallowing it all down.
Cammie pulled her mouth free. “Remember what you promised,” she said and then once more, she returned her mouth to the governor’s cock.
Lyle Landry couldn’t help it but even though he’d just cum, he was getting just as hard and as stiff as if he’d never cum.
“That’s what I want,” Cammie purred as she pulled her mouth free. “Do you want me to ride it?”
Lyle didn’t much care what she did with it just so long as she didn’t leave it alone but if she wanted to ride it then hell yeah, that was fine with him so the governor nodded.
Cammie smiled as she rose to her feet and took off her skirt. She turned around so she was facing away from the man. “Can you help me?” she asked. “I need someone to take my panties down.”
The governor obliged and then Cammie was leaning down, her hand taking hold of his cock even as her body arched itself over the man’s cock. “Mmm,” she said. “This is what I need.”
Lyle Landry couldn’t help but groan as Cammie’s pussy slid down around his cock. Instinctively, his hands seem to come up around her waist although truth be told, they really weren’t needed.
“Oh my God,” the woman moaned. “Oh my God. That feels so good there.”
Lyle couldn’t agree more. Cammie’s pussy felt great as it rode his cock.
“I’m going to cum,” Cammie announced.
He wanted her to, Lyle thought. He wanted her to so bad.
She was riding him harder and then harder and harder still when finally, she stopped and she gasped and even as she did, Lyle could feel his cock cumming inside her.
“Oh my God,” the woman gasped. “Oh my God. That’s it. That’s it. Oh my God.”
It certainly was, Lyle told himself. It most certainly was. “So, do we have a deal?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“And Cammie?”
“Yes?”
“If you want to come back and see me again, please feel free. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve always got an open door to you.”
“Thank you, Governor.”
It was some time later after Cammie had left when the Governor talked with his Chief of Staff. “So how’d it go?” Deke asked.
“It went great,” Lyle said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I think she’s definitely on our side.”
“Yeah, well that was a given. What about the rest of it?”
Lyle just smiled at that. “The rest of it was pretty damned good, too.”