Free THE PRESIDENT 2 by Mallory Monroe

either, as she sat behind her desk in her small office inside the East Wing of the White House.   She had a long line of meetings already scheduled by the president’s staff to enhance what they called her “softer” side.   This particular meeting was with members of the Society for the Prevention of Pit Bull Cruelty and she listened as they pleaded with her to get behind their cause.   How supporting better treatment of pit bulls would make her appear “softer,” was a mystery to her.
     
    But even as she listened to their spiel, all she could think about was Dutch.   He was adept at handling every crisis they threw his way, and could take those punches of blame, but she knew in many ways it was beginning to tear him apart.   He used to joke, during the last campaign, that he didn’t even want a second term.   She assumed it was just the jitters and the fact that he was in a tough reelection fight.   But now she wasn’t so sure if it was a joke at all.   She now believed, in many respects, that he sometimes hated his job.
     
    Just like she sometimes hated hers as she sat behind her desk and listened to wealthy middle-aged ladies drone on and on about pit bulls.   “When many shelters need more space,” one of the women pointed out, “they will decide to euthanize pit bulls above any other breed of animal simply because of the pit bulls’ reputation for violence.   Forget the fact that pit bulls are no more violent than any other breed,” the good lady insisted, “but they continue this practice to this day.”
     
    He made love to her for nearly two hours last night, sliding in and out of her so slowly and for so long that it intoxicated both of them: it felt like a slow-acting drug.   It was so different than their usual, more aggressive sex, but it made them realize something beautiful and startling: that they had no more points to prove.   They were an unshakeable couple, and they both knew it.
     
    And then that phone call about that poor student hostage had them reeling again.  
     
    “Don’t you agree, Mrs. Harber?” one of the women, Marilyn Feingold, asked.
     
    Gina’s dark brown eyes finally turned her way.   “Excuse me?” she asked.
     
    “About the death penalty for humans.   It’s the same thing for pit bulls.   I heard you on television say that those mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines are discriminatory and I couldn’t agree more.”
     
    “Yes,” Gina said, now kicking herself for not paying closer attention.   These ladies weren’t as air-headed as she had assumed. “They are discriminatory.”
     
    “Take your brother, for instance,” Feingold said.   Gina wanted to quickly correct her by saying that Marcus Rance was her half -brother, a half- brother she had never even met before, but she didn’t go there.   He was her deceased father’s son, and she wasn’t sullying her own father’s memory by bashing his son, no matter what Dutch’s staffers insisted she do.
     
    “What about him?” she decided to say, instead.
     
    “He’s on death row too, just like our pit bulls are.   What would you tell the parole board about your brother’s sentence?”
     
    “Since I don’t believe in the death penalty for anyone, including any human being like Marcus Rance or any random pit bull, I would recommend life in prison without the possibility of parole.   I would be in favor of all sentences being commuted to life.”  
     
    “That’s how we feel about our pit bulls.   They have a death sentence over their heads and nobody’s advocating for their commutation to life.”
     
    “Except you guys,” Gina pointed out and Marilyn Feingold couldn’t help but smile.
     
    “Yes,” she said.   “Except us.”
     
    Then the conversation shifted, as she compared the fate of pit bulls to unwed mothers, crack babies, and drug addicts.   “To keep it real,” Feingold said to Gina, as if Gina, this black woman, would have firsthand experience with all of