147. Female Harvard Law Grad Living In Boston

I’m at a Harvard Law School alumni event and manage to get up the nerve to sit next to Barack. I extend my hand and say Good afternoon, Senator. I introduce myself and say, Class of 2006. He says, Barack Obama, class of 1991. For a moment we share a conspiratorial smile, like we’ve played a private game in which he's just another fellow alum. Then he turns away. I can feel his tiredness, his desire to stop moving, to breathe, to rest.

After the event I’m walking towards Harvard Square and I see him walking towards the T station. He’s wearing an Oxford cloth shirt and slacks, and is pulling a roller suitcase. I smile and ask if he would like a ride to the airport. He says he’s fine with the subway. I tell him it’s no trouble, that my car is right around the corner.

Then he is in my bed wearing blue striped boxers. I have a perfect apartment in Harvard Square (not so in real life!). The room has a bohemian look, all earth tones and Indian prints. The afternoon sun is coming through the window above the bed.

I remember the intense conversation we shared, and think about how I offered him my bed for a nap. We're talking less intensely now. I’m reclining on the side of the bed, not touching him, but am very close and the attraction is palpable. We fall silent and our eyes meet. Then we kiss very softly.

I can feel his desire to relax, to be himself, to lose himself here. I realize this could never be kept a secret. I know how disastrous it would be for the man about to be our country’s first black president to have an affair with a white woman twenty years his junior. I cannot risk any chance of being the woman who will cost our country his presidency. I put my hand on his chest and say, This is getting really dangerous really fast.