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It’s hours after the tailgate party, and Connor’s been texting up a storm.
That was very hurtful, Roman. Willa was upset. I’ve told her you’re grieving Pop, and it’s making you say things you don’t mean, and I think she understood. Let’s all sleep on it and talk in the morning. An apology would be appreciated.
Sitting on his couch in the darkness, Roman leaves the message on read. He has a hard time containing a giggle as he closes it. Willa was upset, huh? That was hurtful, was it? Con thinks they can talk it out in the morning? Shoot the shit over croissants and coffee, swap a ‘sorry’ for a ‘no harm done’ and saunter arm in arm to the nearest polling booth?
Seems pretty fucking unlikely. Roman’s done some texting of his own.
Connor doesn’t want any leftover party carrots. Come get your kill switch or don’t.
He considers being cute about it. Champagne on ice, mood lighting lamps, waiting naked but for a strategically placed pillow. A tablespoon of sleaze for the fruitcake mix. A pinch of the fascist’s secret country club slut. Hot in an oily kind of deep fried filth way; he thinks it’s a genre of romance novel not yet fully explored by the purveyors of homegrown smut and nonsense. There’s a pitch for Kendall. There’s the sweetener the investors need in their coffee. If Living+ shits a brick, Roman’s ready with the pivot.
He does not, in the end, wait naked. He rather likes his dick attached to his body, and the polling numbers are dire this evening. No telling what mood Mencken’s in. Roman’s not feeling that cute right now either.
The things he is feeling are not nice. Not good. He’s feeling like three people on his close contacts list might be about to block him. He’s feeling just a little bit cornered. Not unlike that dog Shiv and Tom had penned in the party coat check, which Roman spent a good couple of minutes making fun of from a distance before giving up. The pup looked as dead inside as Shiv’s marriage. Roman can relate.
He leaves the lights off. They’re not needed. Fuck off huge glass windows letting half the New York neon in, washing the walls and carpet in second hand streetlamp, like cotton candy smoke from a passerby’s vape. Roman sets a thumb drive on the coffee table and turns away. Attempts to ease his sense of constriction by removing shirt, shoes and belt, curling up on the couch in a white tee and wounded huddle. Scrolling polling like a gambler at the slots.
Mencken’s recovered a bit in North Carolina. Must have done a thing. Given a speech, kissed a few babies, dropkicked an outspoken minority. Feeding the Fash; the man’s a fucking natural. He saunters up to swing states like a zookeeper to the piranha pool, waving his pail of microaggressions and horse meat.
There’s a knock on his apartment front door; the handle turns, is found to be unlocked. Roman utters a sarcastic, “Heeeey.”
“Thanks, man,” he hears Mencken say in the corridor. “You can chill out here, it’s fine. I won’t be longer than an hour.”
An hour, Roman thinks, dry laughing, tilting his head back until his neck creaks like a broken bedspring at an orgy. A lot can happen in an hour. Reputations, made and ruined. Books get cooked and served up to investors. A minor sexual indiscretion flaps its wings and on the other side of the world the gestating Fourth Reich collapses.
An old man dies on a plane.
“We really need to stop meeting like this,” he says, going back to his doom poll scroll. Mencken’s commanding stare meets his eye from the Arizona jigsaw puzzle piece. It’s a good fucking photo. Sexy but serious, not a trace of democracidal maniac to be found. Very ‘Dom me, Dictator Daddy’ energy. Roman approves.
“It’s not like I have anything better to do,” Mencken says from the doorway. Roman doesn’t look up. “On Election Eve, that famously dead time of year.”
“Yeah, I figured I’d spice up your wasteland of a social calendar. How about a blackmail tornado to blow away the tumbleweeds?”
“Is that what you have for me?”
“It’s one of many, many things I have for you-” Roman starts, and feels hands on his shoulders. He glances back, glances up, way the fuck up; there are skyscrapers in Manhattan with less height on them than Mencken. Some people just don’t know when to call it quits. His train of thought is lost to tunnel vision and a steamy surge of lust. “Hi,” he says lamely. “How’s things on the losing end of the poll predictions?”
“Are we comparing lost causes?” Mencken asks. “There’s a lot of glass in this apartment; you sure you want to start throwing stones?” He grins; he is, as ever, having a fucking fantastic time. The media mugshots never manage to capture that on him. If Rome is burning, Mencken is the first violinist. And sometimes that’s fucking, fucking annoying.
Unfortunately, it’s also fucking hot. Roman grumbles, incoherent sounds of muttered protest to cover for the comeback he doesn’t have. No, YOU’RE the lost cause, fuck!
From the corner of his eye he sees the drive on the table; he’s been trying really hard not to look at it. Stupid little piece of plastic, stupid grenade to stick down Connor’s shirt and run from. It’s not like it’ll literally kill him. No one’s taking the body bag highway out of the room when the explosion ends. Connor will be sad. Connor will be embarrassed. Connor will be delivered to the lovely people with the blue gloves and masks, and sent home later sans his balls. Nice and neutered for his own safety. This will not fucking kill him.
There’s a hand in Roman’s hair, pointedly tugging his head back. He doesn’t fight; he left the fighty at Shiv’s apartment along with his coat (accident) and the glass of red ‘wine’ someone tried to convince him wasn’t actual liquid shit (intentional). Mencken, however, is eminently well-equipped in the fight department. He pulls Roman by the hair until Roman’s scrambling against the back of the couch, trying to simultaneously balance himself and keep his neck bones from snapping. He fumbles behind him, finding Mencken’s hip. Sighs as Mencken leans in to kiss him.
That can’t be a good sign. Roman hasn’t done anything to deserve it yet.
Mencken still has him by the hair, twisting them both into an awkward angle just to meet each other’s mouths, kind of side-on, messy. It hurts to hold himself upright but Roman does. He’s not sure he could free himself from the grip Mencken has on him, he’s like a bad puppy scruffed and put into a corner. He lets his mouth fall open for tongue. His whole body twitches when he gets it.
Should have tried harder with Connor, he thinks. Mencken’s free hand slides down his chest. He stops on Roman’s pecs and from the light press of thumb Roman realises his nipples have stiffened hard against his t-shirt. Isn’t that what he wanted? He didn’t go nude but he lost a few layers, he made an invitation of himself and Mencken answered. Clinging to the couch and Mencken’s hip, Roman tries to push up into his hand. He makes a soft sound as Mencken strokes over his nipple.
No one’s talking. There’s no fucking…banter, jokes, ill-hidden codewords and quotes and eye contact. None of the oops, we’re so evil vibe that Roman’s never found matched elsewhere. This isn’t their dance. No one says a fucking word but he can hear himself breathing, hear Mencken breathing, hear the soft sounds of saliva on his mouth, their tongues, and the rustle of his t-shirt as Mencken teases his nipple through the fabric.
There’s some fucking intimacy, he thinks idiotically. See, Shiv, I can do that shit fine. It’s good. It’s really good for me right now.
And he still does not fucking deserve it.
It’s almost a relief when he’s finally released, though his dick disagrees and his brain has about as much value to contribute as Shiv’s wine. Roman sinks back down onto the cushions. He finds himself curling up, knees to chest, in his corner of couch. Roman Roy, the bastard armadillo princeling.
Mencken takes the other side.
“So,” he says casually, as if nothing just happened. There’s a slight shine to his lips, to his eyes, that implies triumph. But the lights are still off and his details are blurred, somehow less safe in the shadows. “What’s the Connor Roy kill switch? I love the smell of fratricide in the morning.”
It is morning. Early, one or half past, but it’s morning, and that makes it D-Day. E-Day. The running of the bulls and the writing of the ballots and the farewell to democracy, if Shiv is to be believed. Or maybe not. Maybe Danny Jiménez has it all in the bag. Maybe Connor won’t manage to shit in this one.
Roman looks at the drive on the coffee table.
“I really didn’t want to use this,” he says. “Kind of hoped your team could come up with something good for him. What, was the sugarbowl empty? All you had left was a some pre-chewed gum and a broken vibrator? Come on. Mogadishu?”
Mencken shrugs. “It’s late in the game, Rome. I’ve made a lot of promises to get here. If he’d picked up when we started calling a few weeks back, Luxembourg was on the table. New Zealand, maybe. But he stonewalled us and we made other calls. I couldn’t wait around forever. And, you know, your dad still had a say in the matter – he told me he was handling it, and I believed him.”
Reflexively, Roman rubs his chest. He stops as soon as he catches himself, tugging his knees closer; he’s still too fucking sensitive, his skin with its little bitch ache, like it’s wondering why Mencken stopped touching him. Stupid. Serve his skin right if he peeled it all off and threw it away like last season’s leisurewear.
He wonders what the plan was for Connor. What Dad’s plan was. Money? A role in the company? An offer to spend Christmas at Austerlitz just this once?
Probably money. Certainly not an ambassadorship, or he’d have fucking done it by now. Mencken’s not wrong – they’re late in the race. Final stretch, the finish line in sight, and the good carrots were eaten a long time ago. Whatever Dad wanted for Connor, it wasn’t anything he deemed…real. Nothing Con could have fucked up. Or, you know, done well at.
“Still,” Roman mutters. “Mogadishu, Somalia. What is that, lowest GDP per capita, anywhere? Land of milk and honey, by which I mean piracy and human rights abuses? That’s where you wanted to send Connor?”
Mencken reaches over, wrapping his hand around one of Roman’s ankles. He tugs, gently, until Roman uncoils, watching with his lip between his teeth as his foot ends up in Mencken’s lap. Hesitantly, he surrenders his other one to the same fate.
Mencken presses his fingers into the sides of Roman’s ankles.
“I can’t claim credit for Mogadishu,” he says. “The campaign team wanted to low ball and work their way up. I got them to put Slovenia on the table for him – by which I mean, for you. I wouldn’t have bothered otherwise. He should have taken it. I mean, fuck – UN, EU, Central Europe, baby’s first nuclear power plant; if he’d kept his head down in Slovenia for a year or so, we could have talked bigger players.”
“Yeah, I don’t think he knows where that is. We’re talking about the guy who wanted North Korea.”
“Nukes or nothing, huh? That’s bold. He’s wasted the opportunity of a lifetime, but I can’t fault a man for sticking to his guns.”
“How uncharacteristically benign of you,” Roman says.
It’s not quite as sarcastic as he’d have liked; Mencken is massaging his ankles. And, sure, he’s not an expert paid masseuse like the guy Roman borrowed from Kendall for a while, imported straight from Myanmar. But he is the man who has a fifty-fifty shot at being President in the next twenty-four hours, and he’s Mencken, and he has a way of looking like he’s plotting unholy totalitarian evil while doing the loveliest things to Roman’s arches.
Get yourself a man who can do both, Roman thinks, flexing his foot against Mencken’s inner thigh. Orchestrate the fall of American democracy, and also give a good fucking massage. Fuck.
He’s stalling. A horse shying away from a show jump. He doesn’t like the obstacle; it’s high and scary and resembles his brother’s most pathetic sad face. And he can’t banish a bad little thought from his brain that says Con was never getting a proper sugar lump at all. The sweeteners were all artificial and universally a bit shit, because it never fucking mattered, did it? Why dig up a carrot when there are sticks on the ground, when it’s obvious that Roman has one in his hand already?
Mencken knew there was a Connor secret, because Roman told him. Last resort. Ace up the sleeve. Break glass in emergency and not otherwise.
His nasty little badthought wonders if he doomed Con the moment he let Mencken know there was an option to nuke.
But it’s too late now. Roman lets his eyes slide back to the drive, gnawing his lip.
“So this is quite the favour I’m doing for you,” he says.
Mencken inclines his head. “Are you worrying about the return on your investment?”
“No – I mean, yeah, obviously. I want to see those gains. Blow ‘em sky high, inflate them large so I can fuck ‘em hard. Sure. And there’s nothing I enjoy more than inflicting long-lasting, potentially permanent damage to my own flesh and blood – that shit slams. If you can’t hate crime your own family, can you even hate crime at all?”
“Amen,” Mencken murmurs. “So, I have to ask. What is it? How does Abel kill Cain? Out with it, Romulus – on what hill should we found Rome?”
“How about this hill?” Roman says, raising his middle finger, flipping Mencken off. “The one with the big, white Hollywood letters saying ‘fuck you’?”
“Yeah, that’s not my hill to die on,” Mencken says, laughing. “Come on. If you need me to tell you that I’ll make it worth your while – sure. I will. And not just now.” He strokes the top of Roman’s foot. Pushes the hem of Roman’s pants higher until his plain black sock gives way to bare skin. He bows his head to press a kiss there, and it’s so light Roman barely feels it, but somehow his whole body comes alive.
Roman clenches his fists, biting down on his lip again and breathing so shallowly it’s making him dizzy. He watches Mencken tug his sock down, exposing shin, and whines in the back of his throat as Mencken kisses it.
“I’ll make this good for you,” Mencken tells him. “I will blow the GoJo deal apart, along with any other threat that comes your way. I don’t dance for anyone – but we could tango together. My DOJ will never touch you, and my regulations are yours to enforce or ignore as you please. You keep the media tone friendly, I’ll keep the legislature friendly, and we might actually get vital things done for this country. Correct the course for decades to come. And you can tell your siblings this: the President only answers calls from you.”
It’s a nice speech, but Roman can’t help himself. “Are we talking booty calls, or actual business?”
“Six of one,” Mencken says. “I don’t really feel a need to distinguish. That’s our thing, right? You, me, no lines, no boundaries.”
His hands are back on Roman’s ankles, applying pressure in the gaps between bone. It’s nice, until it’s not. The dig of his fingers becomes painful. And he watches Roman with a look of mild curiosity, as Roman gnaws his lip, tenses, whimpers a bit but doesn’t wriggle. He stares back at Mencken as the ache crosses the border into agonising territory, sneaking through illegal and unnoticed in the night.
This is new for them.
It’s not –
It’s not how Dad used to do it. It’s different. Dad never meant to; when he raised a hand it was because he was forced. By Roman, by his fuckups and inability to meet a basic standard of competence, by his innate talent in the area of being a fucking annoying piece of shit. Roman’s problem, not Dad’s. Dad never liked hurting him.
This is very, very different.
Roman’s breath catches. He feels tears start to prickle in his eyes; he thinks Mencken might be looking for them, by the twitch to the corner of his mouth, approving, kinda pleased. He’s waiting for something, Roman thinks. Fucking…digging right down into Roman’s clay to see what treasure emerges with the filth and fossilised shit. What have you got for me? says the leopard seal grin stretched across Mencken’s face. How far can you go when I push?
Do you like it?
Digging his nails into his fists, Roman shuts his eyes and lets the whole fucking thing happen, wash over him, swallowing it down like the last of the whiskey in a glass. What’s he going to do about it? Nothing. This is the inevitable consequence of his actions at the party; he fucked things with Gerri and he really fucked things with Connor, and someone needs to keep him in check for the love of god, because if not then what else might he fuck? If there aren’t any consequences, what might he do? What is he?
He's not fucking real, for starters.
He lets go of the tension and relaxes into Mencken’s hands. It hurts. It helps. It’s like the closing of a loop, the sealing of a deal, the signature applied to the paper and the handshake at the end. He fucked up and he’s feeling it and all is well. His exhale morphs into a moan.
Mencken releases him slowly. He and Roman look at each other; they don’t need to say shit, or waste breath on the obvious. They’ve been on the same page from the start.
Roman shifts one of his bruising ankles, nudging toes against the front of Mencken’s pants. He finds the outline of an erection. A well-sized dick he knows Mencken would love to fuck him with. There are a lot of mutual feelings floating around on this early election day morning.
“Talk,” Mencken tells him, nudging Roman’s foot away from his hard on. Work first, play later. Fucking fine.
“It’s Willa,” Roman says. “Connor’s wife, wannabe-FHOTUS: first hooker of the US. We were friendly, I used to get her into parties sometimes. Made pimp-style intros to guys I knew. And then Con stopped by for a visit one weekend, depressed as fuck over something, so I set them up. He paid her for the girlfriend experience. Fucking moved her in full time, all expenses covered in their scorpion-riddled desert love nest. Millions thrown at her weird-ass theatre hobby shit, Broadway for braindeads. A romance for the ages.”
It’s a high level executive summary of the history he doubts Mencken cares about, and doesn’t have time for anyway. Why delve into the deep details when the bullet points are right there? This is Achilles, here is his heel. Fire at will, Mister President.
As summaries go, it’s a fucking act of butchery. There’s so much missing; an amputation of years, a slaughterhouse lineup of the undeserving, good times tossed into the scrap bin for the pigs. Roman likes Willa. There’s never been beef. Willa played the game and won the prize; she walks away with Con’s ring and a huge slice of pie on the day she divorces him, in a year or so give or take. There’s no prenup. Mad props to her. She earned her fucking medal, and now he’s going to choke her with it.
Or rather, Mencken will. He has the look of a guy who favours a slow death for his enemies.
“Can you prove it?” Mencken asks.
Yeah. Unfortunately, yeah.
“Yes, I can fucking prove it,” Roman says. “I made introductions. Bro code, stuff gets shared. I reached out to a few of the guys and they sent me bank transfer records. But all you really need are the videos, and I got you covered.”
Roman nods at the drive on the table, and decides not to look at it again. Just fucking pretend it no longer exists; he’s finished the handover and it’s not his business anymore, is it? What Mencken does next is on his own conscience, if he has one. Signs point to no. Still not Roman’s problem.
Connor will probably not forgive him. Willa one hundred percent definitely won’t, and he can’t blame her; he deserves whatever consequences this play brings down on his head. It’s going to be an awkward family Thanksgiving. No Dad. Con, Willa and Shiv will all hate him. Ken might not, but also he might – there’s still plenty of time to fuck up on that front.
It’s a lonely view from the top of the American flagpole.
He wonders what will happen if Mencken loses.
“Works for me,” Mencken says. “And the team will love it. Thanks.”
He doesn’t reach for the drive; he’s undoing the knot of his tie, a casual glance at his watch as he does. Busy, of course, he’s fucking busy. Brisk like he’s ready to pay the tab and head out. He drops his tie on the coffee table next to the drive, giving Roman’s ankles a pat.
“In keeping with the quid pro quo nature of this relationship,” he says. “Can I offer a sweetener? I’m thinking I can do you a little better than Mogadishu.”
There’s always a sugar lump reserved for Roman, but he’s a shittonne easier to please than Con. No nukes needed here; his domino falls at a touch. He takes Mencken by the wrist and jerks his head towards the bedroom, wondering as he does if it makes him a cheap lay. Roman Roy, poll boost vending machine; stick a dick in his slot and watch the magic happen.
There are no polite preliminaries, no foreplay to the fuckfest – in the bedroom, in the dark, he takes it on his hands and knees. A couple of Mencken’s fingers spreading him open while his pants are still at mid-thigh, slick with lube, flexing ungently until Roman spasms and gasps a ragged, “fuck.”
He knows he’s tight. He knows Mencken feels it. He thinks he detects an intake of breath and the question on the tip of Mencken’s tongue. And this is Mencken, who never censors himself when there are uncomfortable questions to be asked; that’s his thing, his god-given right to poke the wounds where they’re rawest. It’s all fine and funny on the ATN airwaves. Roman will not tolerate it here.
“Can you just give it to me already?” he snarls. “Save the lovey-dovey bullshit for your fucking wife, I don’t need it.”
His dick is a solid weight between his thighs, and the ache in his balls revved up faster than seems possible. He quivers at a curl from Mencken’s fingers.
“I feel like you do need it,” Mencken tells him. “But you need a lot of things these days, right, Roman? It’s fine. We can explore that some other time. I’m in a position to be generous, if you’ll let me.”
He eases his fingers out and spits, perfunctory, affectionate contemptuous on Roman’s hole. And fuck him, bless him, he follows it up with the press of his dick. It spares Roman from having to respond. He opens his thighs as wide as he can and bites down on his lip when he needs to.
He’s given Mencken so fucking much; an audience with Logan Roy, a place in the race, the nomination. The media coverage. The crown. It does not escape his attention that at the end of it all, he’s the one getting fucked like a dog. Roman Roy, the pliant little puppy. Why the fuck not – Queen Liz had her corgis, and the Prez has his bitch. He thinks it and feels his gut tighten, his whole body clench up on Mencken’s dick.
“Rome,” Mencken says; he draws the sound out with hand on Roman’s spine, stroking from his tailbone up to his shoulder blades. “Fuck, I still can’t work you out. You’re a puzzle.”
“Like your favourite Rubik’s Cube?”
“The best toy in the box,” Mencken agrees, laughing. He stops, his dick so fucking deep that the feel of him borders uncomfortable, intrusive. Roman makes a sound. Wriggles. He gets the flat of Mencken’s palm on his nape and finds himself pushed down into the pillow. Instinctively, he flexes, arching his back, his ass angled up like an offering.
He can imagine what he must look like; in his head, it’s fucking scorching. Face down, ass up, a body for Mencken to use.
“I’m really not that complicated,” he gasps. It’s true; he’s not. The only subtle bone in his body is taking its sweet goddamn time about railing him.
“Sure you are,” Mencken says. “You’re something special. Unique. Am I really the first one to point that out to you?”
Roman doesn’t answer. He’s not sure what he’s meant to say, or why his entire nervous system is suffering paroxysms in response to Mencken calling him special. Roman Roy, special boy. What a unique piece of shit. The nerve on this guy to make it sound like he means it while he strokes Roman’s back like he’s settling a skittish stallion. Who’s supposed to be running the race here, and who’s the one holding the reins?
“Don’t fucking psychoanalyse me.” He says it into the pillow as Mencken pushes back into him, slowly, so that all Roman feels is the wet slide of lube and sweet edge of friction. “I just cut my brother’s throat for you. Make me fucking feel it.”
“Hey, anything for you, man,” Mencken says, his grin like a needle in Roman’s eardrums. “Let’s honour that blood sacrifice the way it deserves.”
Finally, he fucks Roman like he means it; rough and devouring, his hand like a boot on the back of Roman’s neck, holding him down. Aching, spit and tears soaking into the pillow, Roman takes it. Ridden hard, he thinks, dizzy. He’s dropped the reins, if he ever held them. His fucking thighs won’t stop trembling. And every twitch from Mencken’s dick sears him raw from the inside; is it really a punishment if he loves it?
He does love it. The sounds he can’t stop making are variations of yeah, fuck, oh yeah, and if there’s an element of transaction here then, fuck, sign him up for a subscription. Let him feel the weight of his decisions and the weight of Mencken’s hand. Let him limp his way over the finish line; he’s still crossing over in first place.
He can’t stop thinking how funny it is, that a whore decides the fate of America.
The punchline is, he’s not sure he means Willa or himself.