by Tony Manzo

 

I had an affair with Sarah Palin. 

It was in early spring of this year, as the melt from the mighty Mississippi washed the valleys of the Alaska’s majestic Cascade Mountains, when we first made love.  Sarah, O, Sarah.  Her very name a sigh.  I remember that moment of perfect post-coital satisfaction, Sarah in my arms, looking deeply into my eyes, caressing here and there my stimulus package.  Sarah.  She called me her little salmon nipples.  I called her the most charismatic politician since George W. Bush.  And I meant it.

 

It’s hard to believe, but before I met her I avoided having sexual intercourse with women who gut a moose, talk a lot and disapprove of drinking.  In fact, though I’m loathe to admit it, my ideal female was a nymphomaniacal mute who owns a liquor store. 

 

I’ve come a long way.

 

She hired me to tutor her daughter Piper.  As she explained at the interview: “Trig I don’t worry about, he’s a Mongoloid.  But I’m keeping my other children apart from all strenuous intellectual activity so when they grow older they’ll be good Republicans.”

 

“Then why get a tutor?”  I was confused.

 

According to Sarah, Piper’s failure in school was the result of a bad purchase decision.  Instead of buying the Baby Einstein Tapes, Sarah opted for the cheaper Baby Buttafuoco Tapes, so that when asked if she knew the alphabet, Piper said “Fuckin’ A” and cupped what would’ve been her nuts if she had any.

 

“I mean, Christ, the governor’s daughter, it’s embarrassing.  Listen, all I want you to do is teach her to spell without ‘fuckin’”.

 

“How about read?”

 

“If it happens, it happens.  Hey, this is Alaska.  You know what they call someone here who isn’t dumb, fat and drunk?

 

“No, what?”

 

“A tourist.”  Then she winked at me.

 

Until then I had never seen anyone wink without irony, and I found being winked at a surprisingly pleasant experience; it forms a bond, somehow, an intimacy.  So I winked back.  Then she winked back at me.  Then I winked back at her.  This continued for quite some time, and I felt we were both in grave danger of developing Bell’s Palsy when Todd, her husband, stomped into the room, looking for his coonskin hat.

 

A man of few words and fewer thoughts, he’s the type of guy you wouldn’t like even if you liked that type of guy.  Sarah introduced me to him as the new tutor; he put on the face of someone detecting seepage of gas, shook my hand, crushing it in his iron grip and left, trailing a cloud of musk. 

 

Sarah sat beside me and tenderly massaged my fused joints.  No pit bull now, but a ministering angel.  She smelled sweetly of seawater.  “He does this to everyone,” she said to comfort.  “Todd is a man of strange pleasures.”

 

“Strong too, huh?”

 

“Yes.  Very” Her face rose to me like a flower yearning for the sun.  “But the brawny type is so often disappointing when it matters most.  I prefer men like you,” she said, her voice husky with emotion, “men with slender arms, bandy legs and a slack chest.”

 

And so the affair began.

  

Regardless my appeal, I knew our relationship could not last.  Having killed her political party, she would now be called upon to embalm it at pro-life rallies, NRA meetings and loony bin evangelical events.  There would be no time or place for me in her future.

 

I resigned as Piper’s tutor the day Sarah resigned as governor, and I have not heard from my better self since.