The Cave Dwellers by Christina McDowell (readict books TXT) 📕

Doug groans: “Unhhh… God, that feels good. That’s it, to the left, unhhh, yeaahh.”

Cate drops the balancing act and digs her heel into the side of his spine. “Does that hurt?”

Doug ignores her. “Okay, okay, I gotta turn over,” he says. And flips over on his back so they’re making eye contact. Cate thinks it’s game over; she doesn’t realize Doug’s in a different game.

He pulls his legs to his chest. “Okay, now lean on me as hard as you can,” he says. Cate exhales, gets on her knees in front of him, and leans into his shins so his knees get closer to his chest. They’re eye to eye, like two acrobats, but he doesn’t pull her in for a kiss. Cate waits, until it doesn’t happen.

“Unhhhh. Okay, okay, I gotta get up now,” Doug says. He shifts her back, then scrambles up, his arms above his head as he yawns. “Gotta get home to the girls, see you tomorrow?” He points to her and heads for his office door.

Cate stands, a wave of humiliation hitting her. “See you tomorrow,” she says, standing barefoot, stranded in the middle of the office.

As Cate stomps down Constitution Avenue, she becomes acutely aware of the fact that on Capitol Hill, human resources doesn’t really exist. Every senator’s office operates as its own kingdom, so if Cate filed a complaint it would have to be with Walter. She knows that if she files, she’ll be fired.

When someone hurts Cate, whether intentionally or not, she holds on to it and uses it to thrust her forward, placating and listening and studying whomever it is she needs to overthrow. Cate’s always had an intense awareness and understanding of people and their feelings, their shame, their vulnerability; she’ll get to know them—what they were like in high school, how old they were when they got their heart broken. She listens for the gems and drops them in her pocket like rocks and saves them until she’s ready to scoop and throw. She isn’t in touch with why—why being that her father abandoned her for prison when she was fourteen, that he hurt her mother, and that she was ostracized for it. She still thinks about the time in ninth grade when Danny Farrell accused her of stealing an Adidas gym bag from the lost-and-found and told her, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” No one ever acknowledged the fact that he was gone, only in moments of bullying or gossip behind her back. She received no sympathy from teachers or parents or friends, not even from Chuck or Meredith, who used only their money and connections to support her, to get her into college, to get her the job in Doug’s office. No one ever asked if she was okay.

As the escalator descends into the Metro station, Cate tries to shake off the initial shock and humiliation that she knows is not hers to carry. A deep knowing that Doug is turning away from her—her ambition—that this isn’t love. He used her for sex. A moment of dysphoria before she steps through the sliding doors of the train and is overcome by rage, the kind of rage only a woman without any father, money, or status available to protect her can feel.

The next day Cate and Walter are hovering over Doug, who sits at his mahogany desk. They’re watching the end of an ad on YouTube in an attempt to decide whether or not it’s appropriate for Doug’s SAVE THE BROS baseball hat to be in the background on his bookshelf in his social media video introducing the amendment to the domestic violence crime bill making psychological control a Class E felony.

On the computer screen: The camera pans to a man wearing a gold chain and wife-beater, who looks directly into the camera: “That’s what she said,” wink. The bros dance and shimmy and high-five and fist-bump and the camera pans out. “Tweet your bro anonymously.” SAVE THE BROS! appears on the screen.

Doug spins around in his chair, chuckling at the ad, then sighs.

“I think this is inappropriate and we should replace the hat with your Michael Jordan bobblehead,” Cate says.

“It’s an advertisement for organic protein drinks, for God’s sake,” says Walter, pit stains noticeable through his white dress shirt. “We need to appeal to our youth, we need hip things in the background.”

A young cameraman enters, begins to set up the tripod. Doug pretends he is invisible.

“But this is for our female base, young and old,” Cate argues. Doug shoots her a disappointed look, which startles her; she thinks maybe she’s gotten a little loose with her decorum around the office, especially in Walter’s presence. And after her realization last night, that Doug may no longer have any use for her, she can’t afford to make any mistakes. She makes a mental adjustment, runs over to the photographer to help set up, leaving Walter and Doug to review their notes on the announcement of the bill.

Doug straightens in his seat, adjusts his red striped tie, which makes him look more like a male candy striper than a senator. Cate stands behind the tripod watching him mouth his lines into the camera as practice, doubting his abilities.

Walter notices the way Cate is looking at Doug, her longing and disappointment, and walks over with a clipboard holding the script. He extends his arm across her chest, grazing the back of it against her nipple, then lifts his arm gently up and down before Cate grabs the clipboard out of his hand. Cate is in a state of shock, as if a cement of shame has been poured over her, propelling her to pretend it never happened. Walter, satisfied in his crumpled khakis, takes two steps behind her, his foul breath on the back of her neck; he crosses his arms and waits for the cameraman to say, “It’s a go.”

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