First Lady in Control

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Janet Rood stood in a black, abbreviated spandex exercise suit that clung to her body like a layer of skin, admiring herself in front of a floor-length mirror in the White House room she had converted into a gym. The room had all the latest Nautilus equipment: weight machines, motorized treadmills, exercise cycles, stair climber, and rowing machines, but today she used none of it. It was Friday and on odd days she did Callanetics, stretching and toning exercises. She used the Nautilus machines on the even days. She looked damned good for forty-five and better than many women twenty years younger.

She placed her hand on her stomach. It was flat and firm. She knew that the stomach, like the thighs, was one of the tell-tale areas of aging. A lot of time and sweat went into keeping hers flat and trim, but it was worth it. She stood sideways, admired her high, tight buttocks, then placed her feet next to one another and noted she still had spaces between her calves and thighs at the right places.

Her preening was interrupted by the President entering the White House living quarters. He threw his jacket on a chair came over and gave her a peck on the cheek.

“How was your day?” he asked automatically moving to the exercise bike.

“Fine. How was yours?”

He ignored her, mounted the exercise bike, and pedaled away half-heartedly. The President also believed in regular exercise and kept fit and trim, but lately he’d been sloughing off as he hadn’t felt well. “What’s for dinner?” he asked.

“What you told the chef to prepare—grilled salmon,” she said, continuing to stare into his eyes through the mirror.

After a few minutes he got off the bike, said, “Talk to you later,” and left the room.

Not once did his eyes travel to her body. She knew she was a sexy, alluring woman. Men stared at her all the time. Some of them she fantasized even lusted over her, but not her husband. He looked at the bike, or the meter attached to it that measured how hard he was working, or the floors or the walls, but never at her. Not even unconsciously as eyes sometimes wander to something pleasurable stimulated by memory fragments of learned experiences locked inside the mind. But then she didn’t expect his eyes to fix on her. He didn’t find her sexy. They hadn’t had s*x for years, longer than she cared to remember.

Her thoughts drifted back twenty-two years to their second wedding anniversary. Janet was happier than at any time in her life. Her marriage to Layton had pulled her out of the quagmire of poverty into a life of comfortable respectability. It was a fresh start filled with hope and aspiration. A break from the bleak reality she had known as a child.

Layton had just completed law school at the University of Chicago, and with his father’s help landed a position with the law firm of Fitch, Carrington, and Jay. Layton didn’t believe his wife should work even though she’d completed two years of technical training and was an experienced secretary. He and his family thought it more important she learn social skills to feel more comfortable with the bright, young people who were family friends and acquaintances. She also had to stay home to care for their child, Sean, born six months after the wedding. Her in-laws hired Mrs. Springate, a highly recommended nanny. Janet’s income wasn’t needed. Daddy Rood subsidized Layton’s salary and blessed them with extravagant gifts such as a new automobile every other year.

Janet adapted well to her new status. Attending finishing school classes, she eagerly read up on etiquette and expanded her vocabulary: gourmet and gastronomical, metabolism and glycerides, Montessori and Lamaze, money market accounts and compounded rates of return. She plunged into her new role as homemaker and mother with enthusiasm, determined to prove to Layton and his family that marrying her was not a mistake. Rising at dawn she prettied herself and fixed Layton a hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs, and toast until he decided that eggs were dangerously high in cholesterol and switched to dry cereal that he could have prepared for himself. Still, she got up to make the orange juice and coffee — only one cup as too much caffeine was not good for him — and bid him a pleasant goodbye.

She read all of Dr. Spock’s books to raise Sean and insisted on bathing him. She drained Mrs. Springate’s knowledge of children, asking hundreds of questions until Mrs. Springate threatened to quit if Janet kept hounding her.

* * *

Janet whistled a joyful tune as she parked the vacuum cleaner in the closet. Cleaning the house was an enjoyment and she prided herself on how everything sparkled and shined. She was just about to polish the dining room set when the doorbell rang.

Clad in a mink coat, Janet’s mother-in-law, Mattie, entered when Janet opened the door. She carried a glass container.

“Lay’s not home, I suppose,” she said.

Janet nodded.

While some might describe Mattie’s features as aristocratic, Janet viewed her long sharp nose with nostrils that flared when she laughed and rabbit size teeth as horsy.

“I know he loves Louie’s vegetable soup so I picked some up at lunch.”

On her way to the refrigerator Mattie noticed the can of Pledge on the dining room table she recently purchased. “What’s this?”

“Pledge.”

“My God, Janet, you’ll ruin the table with wax build-up. This needs to be oiled.”

* * *

Moreover, Layton’s wife should not be cleaning because it was beneath her. She should instead concentrate on more lofty pursuits. The Roods hired a cleaning lady and Janet enrolled in college, taking courses in poetry, art, and psychology. She joined a book discussion group, became a member of the Junior League, and frequented the South Shore Country Club where she became proficient at tennis and aerobics.

She let none of the Rood family pressures dismay her. Her exuberance was limitless; her new world an adventure full of excitement.

She not only followed their suggestions but learned to master each new venture with verve and pertinacity. Only her closest friend, Cheryl, whom she met through the South Shore Country Club knew of her humble beginnings.

Janet’s s****l life was dull. Since their honeymoon in Maui it averaged once a month, and it was never very fulfilling for her no matter how creative and exciting she tried to be. That puzzled Janet, but she assumed Layton had a low s****l drive. He wasn’t very passionate before they married, even though he did get her pregnant. She told herself that men from Layton’s social class didn’t cotton to s*x like the boys from her old neighborhood, and guessed that was because s*x was one of the baser emotions. The doers in society sublimated their s****l drives to focus their energies instead to making the world a better place to live. How could she know any better? The boys who pawed at her, who kissed and told, who poured their sticky semen over her, had all been from her social class. Layton was the only one she had been with who was not.

* * *

On the day of her second wedding anniversary Janet lunched with Cheryl at one of the fashionable tea rooms they used to frequent. Cheryl agreed to spend the afternoon with Janet to shop for an anniversary present for Layton.

Janet felt comfortable with Cheryl. They had much in common; both were about the same age and recently married with a young child. Cheryl, unlike Janet, came from a wealthy upper class family with all the proper breeding, but she didn’t flaunt it like other people from the Chicago Gold Coast or the South Shore Country Club. At one time during her adolescent rebellion years, Cheryl even denounced her affluent background for social consciousness-raising, protesting racial segregation. Cheryl accepted Janet as an equal, and exuded a worldliness about her that Janet found refreshing and educational.

They enjoyed a leisurely lunch and gossiped about the goings on at the Country Club before the subject turned to Janet’s anniversary.

Cheryl, exquisitely groomed as always, wore a tailored black and white houndstooth checked linen suit, broad-brimmed black hat, and jeweled silver earrings. Janet admired Cheryl’s taste in clothes and emulated her because Cheryl, born into old money like Layton, instinctively knew what to wear. Still a neophyte in the land of plenty Janet vigilantly guarded against dressing garish. Her determination drove her to fit in and be accepted.

“So what are you going to get Lay?” Cheryl asked sipping her tea.

“Well, I’ve got to pick up this leather bound law book his Dad suggested.” She reached for her clutch bag and shuffled through it. “I forgot the name of it already.” She found it and victoriously waved the torn envelope she’d written it on. “Dad was certain Lay would love it.”

“Boring,” Cheryl said, making a face that reminded Janet of Sean when he didn’t want to eat his beets. “You mean you want me to go shopping with you for that?”

“Not only that. I’m going to give him something very special.”

“What?”

“Me. Gift wrapped in a sexy, black negligee.”

Cheryl giggled. “Divine, Janet. Simply divine. Lay won’t be able to control himself.”

“As long as he doesn’t c*m too quickly.”

Cheryl let out a yelp. Several heads turned as she nudged herself closer to Janet. “Want to hear about the steamy love session Burt and I had last night?”

Janet’s eyes glittered. “You know I do,” she said.

“Burt was in the shower. I was feeling very sexy so I changed into my red baby dolls, lit some candles, and played the ‘Stripper’ melody....”

Cheryl then shared the intimate details of a mini-orgy she and Burt had the night before. She recounted with relish a play by play description that involved who did what and where and how they touched each other.

Janet was attentive to every detail, became extremely aroused and imagined repeating some of the same experiences when she surprised Lay later that day. Even before Cheryl’s story she’d felt starved for s*x since it had been over a month since she and Lay made love. Janet even had an orgasm in her sleep the other night during an erotic dream.

* * *

Janet pushed on the revolving door to Marshall Fields, swishing it against the fixed glass panels. She entered the State Street Store with Cheryl on her heels.

“Look, Janet, handbags reduced fifty percent.” Cheryl pointed to a large display table stocked with hundreds of colorful canvas and straw bags. Several women fumbled through them; one examined a bag held against her waist, another explored the insides.

“Can you believe it?” Janet said. “It’s the end of June. Summer’s barely begun and already they’ve put some of the summer things on sale.”

“Can we peek?”

“Contain yourself, Cheryl. Lingerie is the first stop.”

Redolent mixture of fragrances assaulted their noses when they passed an overly made up sales consultant who promised an elderly lady cosmetics to prevent aging. Janet winked at Cheryl knowingly. They rode the up escalator sharing a bird’s eye view of women in fashionable garb milling around and inspecting artfully displayed merchandise. Sales personnel were ready in the wings to offer assistance and make sales without appearing too aggressive. Ceiling fans swirled above their heads.

“Do you think it would be too raunchy if I tied Lay, naked to the bed and then in my negligee did one of those Salome-type dances over him?” Janet asked.

Cheryl rolled her eyes. “As far as I’m concerned the raunchier the better.”

“You don’t think it’s a little too daring? I mean, I know men get turned on by the Playboy Centerfolds, but they don’t really expect their wife or mother of their children to act like that.”

Cheryl made sure her heel didn’t catch as she got off the escalator. “Not in public, honey, but in the privacy of your own bedroom anything goes.”

“Maybe that’s why...” Janet stopped in mid-sentence. She felt embarrassed to tell about her limited s*x life with Layton. She liked being on equal footing with Cheryl and didn’t want to risk sharing a vulnerability.