Gideon's Bible - Après Sex Reading For Hooker And Congressman, God Works In Mysterious Ways

The Motel 6 on Arlington Boulevard, a stone's throw from the Capitol, but a thousand cultural miles away from official Washington, was the go-to trysting place for those Congressmen who needed a few minutes of sexual abandon, and a luxuriant distance from their cloyingly ambitious wives. 

The go-between was Madame Elvira Madison, nee Finch but who chose to keep her husband's name because of its American, iconic reference.  Hiram Madison was a descendant of James Madison although via a very complex and convoluted family tree.

Hiram’s mother had tried to register with the Daughters of the American Revolution, assuming that James Madison's uncle - her branch of the family tree - had fought as a brigadier in the New Jersey militia in the decisive battle of Trenton; but the registering committee rejected her claim, stating that the evidence presented was shaky at best.

In any case Elvira Finch was always known as Madame Madison, and  based partly on that very American connection (historical cachet in Washington circles means a lot) she had become the sexual service queen of the capital. 

Despite the prevailing censorious mood of the country, the virtually universal opprobrium concerning illicit, adulterous sex, Washington was unaffected.  Congressmen and Senators, imbued with the viral stuff of power, considered themselves above it all, invulnerable, and free to roam. 

Every politician caught with his pants down was surprised - how could this happen to me? they said, but invulnerability has its caveats and codicils, and the likes of Bill Clinton, John Edwards, Newt Gingrich, and a host of other prominent political personalities forgot the rules, and their adversaries were quick to pounce. 

The representative from a Midwestern state, elected by an overwhelming majority, had been in his seat for decades in one of those Congressman-for-Life sinecures guaranteed by a credulous and satisfied constituency - their man had brought home the bacon (generous farm subsidies), helped apply tariffs on foreign farm machinery, and voted his conscience, a rock-solid social conservatism which protected church, family, and tradition. 

Now approaching late middle age and increasingly impatient with his crochety, screechy, and importuning wife, he wanted respite and to cash in on the perks of office which he had overlooked for so long.   Now was the time to live a little, enjoy the benefits of public service and collect the dues owed him as a dutiful public servant. 

The Congressman, however, was no Don Juan, Erroll Flynn, Lothario or Count de Valmont.  He was no seducer, no John F Kennedy who only had to look a starlet's way and she would be in his bed that night.  No, he was a simple man, a humble man, an ordinary man; but that did not deny his desire. It was only difficult to find a complaisant, willing partner.  

Henry Kissinger's famous aphorism about power being the ultimate aphrodisiac did not apply to him.  The fat old Jew could screw his brains out every night but the Congressman had to sleep next to a leathery, dried-up old crone.  

Madame Madison was nothing if not discreet, and rather than operate a classic brothel - beads, cheap bourbon, overstuffed parlor armchairs, divans, and close quartered beds - she preferred to outsource her business; and while the Motel 6 on Arlington Boulevard was nothing to write home about - there were no facade-shot postcards in the drawer - it was anonymous enough to satisfy the security concerns of her politically prominent patrons. 

And so it was that the Congressman and his 'date' the deliciously coffee-colored octoroon from New Orleans met there one unremarkable Thursday afternoon - a hiatus between votes on the floor, meetings with constituents, and a meeting with the Catholic Caucus for Religious Freedom. 

'You've got forty-five minutes left, Mr. Congressman', the octoroon said.  'You were in quite a hurry' but be that as it may, he was in no mood to get up and run.  Casually and quite incidentally, he opened the bedside table drawer and pulled out the Gideon Bible. 

'Who are these people?', he wondered, thinking of the Gideons as a possible network for his electoral campaign soon to go national. A bible in every hotel room?  He flipped through the pages of the New Testament vaguely familiar thanks to the prayer breakfasts and inspirational sermons of the Reverend Titus Anderson. 

'Listen to this', he said to the octoroon and he read familiar verses from The Song of Solomon:

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth; for your love is more delightful than wine... How fair and pleasant you are, O loved one, delectable maiden! You are as stately as a palm tree and your breasts are like its clusters. 

 Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle that browse among the lilies. Until the day breaks and the shadows flee, I will go to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense...

 

The octoroon couldn't believe that it was from the Bible.  All she had ever heard as a child growing up in New Orleans was hellfire and brimstone, damnation, and the tortures of hell.  'Read more' she said, and when the hour was up, he reluctantly put the Bible back in the drawer, slipped his money under the doily on the night table,, zipped up his trousers, and said goodbye. 

This is the stuff of epiphany or 'God moves in mysterious ways'; and the Congressman arranged another meeting with the octoroon for the following week. 

Of course, a good calculator of value, he figured that his money's worth was estimated at twenty minutes of raw rutting and and forty of more substantial reckoning.  This time he was prepared, chapter and verse, and read the most fitting passages of Deuteronomy and Kings usually overlooked or read quickly given the complexity of Jewish patrimony; but for him it meant coupling of the highest order, a procreative odyssey, a human family history.  He and the octoroon, commercial offeror and customer, were in the context of biblical Kings.  

The Congressman, however, was outed, caught in flagrante delicto, a scandal of monumental proportions in his home district but only an interesting sidelight in the Washington Post. The Nation's Capital was used to such things, and a minor Congressman's dalliances were Style Section material at best. 

It would be a nice coda or denouement of the story if the Bible readings at the Motel 6 amounted to something - a conversion, finding Jesus, a commitment to salvation - but they did not.  The octoroon laughed about the preacher of Room 445 and was given a bonus for such high-level commerce; and the Congressman turned the page, thanked God for the gift of his heaven-sent, coffee-colored princess, and went back to his Washington business. 

Kings was not forgotten, however, and the book's verses became grist for his mill.  It never hurt to pepper one's political speeches with Biblical references, and when he did he was reminded both of the celestial paradise which awaited him and that which he enjoyed on earth with his octoroon. 

'So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong', he intoned on a crisp October day, the fairgrounds festive with pumpkins, prize apple pies, and festoons of red and gold. 'For who is able to govern this great people of yours?’ the Bible asked and he repeated rhetorically to the gathered crowd who nodded, whispered prayers of thanks, and applauded. 

As far as the octoroon was concerned, she discreetly opened the night table drawer of every motel room she was in, and was surprised to find a Gideon's bible in each and every one.  'Now, how did they do that?', she exclaimed.  Not quite a conversion, but a good start for a whore.