"Donna?" Josh yells from the kitchen.

"What?"

"Can you come here for a minute?"

"No!"

"I NEED TO ASK YOU SOMETHING!" he roars.

You sigh and blow a damp bit of hair away from your mouth as you survey the seventy thousand boxes piled around you on the floor. "Then come here and ask me. I'm kinda stuck in the middle of the room."

"FINE!"

You sigh heavily and wipe a bead of sweat from your face with your shoulder as Josh appears in the doorway.

"Hi." He's grinning and bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet, obviously pleased about something. Hopefully, there's good news on the air conditioner front.

"Hi, yourself. Did the guy call back? What did he say?"

"He can be here at ten tomorrow."

You mutter a curse under your breath. "Tomorrow? God, I'm dying in here."

"It's the middle of a heat wave! Air conditioners are failing all over the city. Ten was the best he could do."

"Fine, fine. Just remind me that next time we move, we do it in the middle of winter."

"I thought this was it for us?" Josh grins. "A house is for life, not just for Christmas, Donna."

"And we'll be paying for this one for the next thirty years! Just let me complain, will you? I'm going to finish these ten million boxes and then take a cold shower." You kick at a box, frowning at Josh as you lean your back against the side of the bed. "Are you done in the kitchen?"

"Yes! But we now have two toasters, two coffee makers, two unknown food making things that we both apparently needed at some point, and something else that I-"

You shrug. "We'll put some things in storage then."

"I just unpacked everything, Donna! Now you wanna put everything back into the boxes and put them away again? Why the hell did I unpack in the first place?"

"Because I don't want to be living out of boxes for the rest of my life."

"But you won't be living out of them!" he sighs, obviously frustrated. "Anyway, can I just tell you-"

"Hold on a second, Josh. Did you unpack neatly?" you interrupt, and his sheepish expression gives you your answer.

"Uh... well, okay it's neat-ish."

"What does neat-ish mean, exactly?"

"Well," he rubs a hand over his face and then gives in with another sigh, "just be careful when you open any cupboard higher then your head."

"Damn it, Josh," you groan. "I gave you one job. One! Unpack the kitchen stuff. Knives and forks in the drawers, pots in the cupboards by the stove, plates and cups up the top. Electricals on the counter tops. It's not like you had to think about it, I was very specific!"

"Yeah, but I can't help that we have two of everything now! Two toasters, two coffeemakers, enough plates and knives and forks to host our own State Dinner... and fifty thousand frying pans."

"Don't exaggerate."

"Fine. We have nine frying pans. Eight of them were yours."

"So?"

"So, what do you need eight frying pans for?"

You fan your t-shirt back and forth from your body, trying to air your sweaty skin. "They're all used for different things, Josh."

"We really don't have room for that many though."

"We'll make the room," you say firmly. "It'll be fine."

He doesn't accept your reassurances, continuing his rant. "I don't understand how we both have so much stuff! We're putting two one bedroom apartments into a three bedroom house. With a den! It has to fit somehow."

"We'll make it work." You raise your eyebrows at him. "I'll fix the kitchen later but can you at least go back and figure out how to open the cupboards so neither of us gets banged on the head by one of the many frying pans?"

"The many unnecessary frying pans," he emphasizes. "In a minute."

You narrow your eyes. "Fix it now."

"Don't tell me what to do," he smirks. "At least I finished something! You're nowhere near finishing."

"There's a reason for that," you mutter and rip the tape off a new box. "I'm making sure that I really need these winter things unpacked right now. It takes longer. And when you're done with the frying pans you can help me in here."

"Nope." He bounces a little more on his feet, a delighted grin spreading across his face. "And now that we've got that argument out of the way can I now ask you about what I found? Or do you want to discuss the frying pans some more."

"No!" you splutter. "May I ask why you're not going to fix your mistake?"

"Because I found something while I was unpacking and I want to talk to you about it."

"So I gathered," you snap, completely irritated now. "What did you find, Josh?"

"Something in the box marked Electricals." You give him an angry glare and his grin widens. "Something that wasn't on the list."

"Oh?" You pull out some sweaters from a box and pile them neatly beside you. "I don't think that's possible."

"Unless the fairies left it as a housewarming gift, it's very possible you completely forgot to put this particular item on your list alongside the toaster and coffeemaker and sandwich press."

"Josh, before I went on the Russell campaign, I packed everything away into boxes and listed the contents of those boxes on lists that went into the boxes and also went into my computer. Everything in my boxes is fully itemized and cross referenced."

"Nope."

"Maybe you're confusing me with you here, Josh. You didn't make lists of your things and there's no way I made a mistake. It must have come from one of your boxes."

"No, I'm definitely not confused about this. This is your thing from your box. There is absolutely no way that I ever owned one of these."

"What is it?"

"I left it in the kitchen, hold on." He vanishes from the doorway for a couple seconds and then returns, brandishing a small black plastic bag.

"We need to talk about this."

"What is it?" you ask again.

Well," Josh grins, "based on its shape and size, I can only assume it's..." He opens the bag and pulls out your old, pink vibrator..

"Ah."

"Yours?"

"Yes," you mutter, feeling your face flush with an embarrassing heat, "that's Cleo."

"It was in a box marked Electricals," he says again.

You decide to go for a cool and relaxed tone of voice. "That's right, it's electric."

"Of course." He turns it upside down and examines the base, then flips it back up. "Why does the... uh... head look like a..." Josh squints, "Pharaoh?"

"It's Japanese," you explain and he nods knowledgably.

"Okay, that makes sense. Why wouldn't a Japanese vibrator have the visage of an ancient Egyptian on it?"

"Cleopatra."

"What?"

"It's Cleopatra."

Josh nods again. "Hence the name Cleo?"

"Yes."

"You named your vibrator after a dead Queen?" he raises his eyebrows.

"Yes." You fold your arms and stare up at him, defiantly.

Josh stares back down at you for a long moment and then sits on top of an unopened box, shaking his head. "For as long as I live, I will never understand half the things you do, Donna."

"Can I have it please?" You stretch a hand up for the vibrator, but he shakes his head again.

"Not until you explain why you bought Cleopatra."

"Why I bought a vibrator or why I bought one with Cleopatra's head on it?"

"Since it's only used for one thing and I'm guessing you didn't want to use it for whisking eggs, I'm pretty sure I know why you bought the...uh, actual thing. But why one with a face?"

"It's a Japanese tradition. Dates back to the early production of sex toys and how, to get around decency and morality laws which say nothing can look like a penis, they were crafted with faces on them."

"Fascinating stuff," Josh nods. "You bought this in Japan?"

"Nope." You shake your head. "Shop on Wisconsin. Remember my first visit to DC with you in '97? July? Before the election?"

"Vaguely," Josh nods again as he tries to remember. "Yeah. Yeah, you were embarrassingly touristy."

"It was my first time in our nation's capital without chaperones and two hundred other boisterous nine year olds!" you exclaim. "I needed pictures from an adult height."

"You apparently also needed an orgasm."

You laugh, your earlier embarrassment pretty much all gone. "Well, it had been several months since-"

"So when did you buy this?" he interrupts. "As I recall we were together most of the time."

"You and Leo were shut up with the Governor one afternoon. I went exploring." You give him a sweet smile. "I wanted to see what was on the street named after my state."

"Right... okay... you know, this is certainly something I never thought about you."

"I was twenty five, Josh! God, you think I didn't need something when I didn't have a man?"

Josh shrugs. "I guess I never really thought about it at all. I mean... sometimes I thought about you, you know, as a woman, but you were..." he pauses and shrugs again, "just Donna."

"I'm glad you changed your mind about that," you smile.

He smiles back. "Me too. How does it work?"

"There's a button."

"I see." He manages, after a few more flips of the vibrator, to locate the small button on the side of the battery case. He jabs at it a couple times, frowning when Cleo fails to do anything. "It doesn't work."

"No, because there are no batteries in there."

"You're being deliberately obtuse, Donna. Do we have batteries?"

"There might be some in the toolbox in the laundry room. You're going to play with it now, aren't you?"

He nods. "Yes."

"Fine, I'm going to keep unpacking and you can amuse yourself with it."

"You bet."

Josh jumps up and disappears back down the hall, and you return to pawing through another fathomless box, but within half a minute he's roaring at you from the laundry room.

"I CAN'T FIND THE TOOLBOX!"

You sigh, wipe your face with your shoulder to get rid of some of the sweat from the hundred degree temperature and yell back, "IN THE CUPBOARD NEXT TO THE MACHINE."

"THANK YOU!" His feet thunder back down the hall and he reappears in the door, waving a pack of batteries in the air. "Got them."

"That's great, Josh."

"I know." He gingerly steps through the maze of boxes to sit on the edge of the bed, and you hoist yourself off the floor to sit next to him.

"Give it to me."

"You're not done unpacking," he reminds you as he fumbles with the plastic cover over the battery case.

"I'm taking a break," you explain. "I'm afraid you might hurt yourself."

"Will not," Josh argues.

"Will too," you argue back. "And it probably won't work anyway. I haven't used it since before I was on Russell's campaign, which is why it was packed away with all the other things I wasn't using."

"So what were you using instead?"

"My fingers." You smirk at him.

"Ah."

You run your hand up his arm to curl around the back of his neck. "And you, of course."

"Of course." He bends his head down to kiss you, very softly, and when he pulls back he smiles. "Stop distracting me, Donna."

"Sorry."

He finally succeeds in clicking the batteries in the right way and snaps the cover closed. "Now what?"

"Turn it on."

Josh locates the tiny black switch and flicks it up, but when Cleo's head immediately starts quickly rotating he drops her with a surprised, "God!"

"What?"

He starts laughing, but it's strained and high-pitched, and his face has that familiar slightly freaked out expression. "Why didn't you call her Linda Blair?"

"Funny, Josh." You pick the vibrator up from the comforter and wave it at him. "Want her back?"

"Right now?" You nod and he makes a face. "No. The idea of a rotating penis head is creeping me out."

"She doesn't just rotate. She also vibrates." You change the switch's position and Cleo starts shaking as well as spinning.

Josh eyes widen as the plastic beads inside the shaft light up with bright colors. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Why does she do that?"

You shrug, never having really thought about it. "Decoration?"

"But isn't the whole point of one of these to... you know, go inside something? What, exactly, is the point of the… lighting scheme?"

"No idea, Josh."

He falls silent again, staring at the toy in your hand, and then, after a minute or so, reaches for it again. You pass it over and he examines it thoroughly, playing with the switches to adjust the speed and intensity, turning it over in his hands, inspecting every single angle.

"She's clean, right?"

"Clean!" you huff. "What kind of a woman do you think I am using a dirty vibrator? I'll have you know that I thoroughly washed and dried her after every use."

Josh tips his head to the side to stare at you, and then slowly says, "That's kind of hot."

"Cleaning a vibrator?"

"Yes. The idea of you, seconds after orgasm, standing in front of your bathroom sink all weak and shaky from pleasuring yourself, washing this thing."

"It wasn't seconds," you defend yourself. "And it wasn't always my bathroom."

His eyes darken, and not in the aroused way. "Who's bathroom then?"

You smile sweetly at him. A mocking 'I know something you don't know' smile. The smile that never fails to infuriate him.

"Tell me!"

"Are you... jealous?"

"NO!" he roars. "No. Why would I be jealous?"

"I don't know. Maybe the thought of me and other men and Cleo? Should I call them and invite them over so you can put the death grip on them like you're doing to poor Cleo?"

Josh drops her back onto the bed with a grimace and you quickly scoop her up, switch her off, and wrap her in the plastic bag. He frowns at you and you roll your eyes.

"What?"

"We've gone into a conversational territory that I swore to myself I would never get into with you, Donna."

You're confused. "Vibrators?"

"Other men."

"You're jealous of the other men who've used her on me?" You smile softly and stroke his arm reassuringly. "I'm certainly not jealous of the women from your past; why do you have a problem with the men from mine? You're being silly and you know it."

"Yes," he sulks, his face bright red not only from the oppressive heat of the unconditioned house, but also no doubt from the realization that he’s behaving like a five year old. "Do you have a problem with that?"

"No. Relax, Josh, she's never seen a man before you."

"Then the other bathrooms?"

You smile again. "Hotel bathrooms. She came with me when I traveled."

"Everywhere?"

"For many years, yes she did."

"God," he mutters.

"All the times we parted company in the hotel hallways... you in one room, me next door..."

"God." Josh stares at Cleo lying innocently in the plastic bag, no doubt pondering another foolish thought. "Donna..."

"Yes?"

"When you were, uh... you know, with Cleo-"

You grin. "Maaaaasturbating?"

"Yeah, that."

"Why can't you say the word, Josh? We've been together for over six months and we've said some incredibly dirty things to each other... what makes her," you point at the bag containing Cleo, "so different?"

"I have no idea," he splutters. "It's just not something I ever pictured you doing."

"I wasn't a virgin before we were together, Josh. And when I wasn't with someone, I certainly wasn't being chaste. And you thought the whole idea was amusing not ten minutes ago! Your reaction now makes no sense."

"You think I don't know that?" he whines. "Cut me some slack, Donna. This takes some getting used to."

"It shouldn't though," you shake your head, frustrated. "It must be the hundred degree weather that's melting your brain."

"What can I say, I'm a strange person," he says quietly. "Donna-"

"Josh, it's simple. I've had a vibrator for years. I've taken it with me when I've traveled. And no other man has ever seen her. You're the lucky first." You smile at him. "So take a deep breath and try to go back to when you thought this whole thing was amusing and not uncomfortable."

Josh rubs a hand over his face and sighs. "Sorry."

"No problem. I still love you despite your irrationality."

"Thanks."

"Now, what were you going to ask about me and her?"

"Something else you'll use to accuse me of being jealous." He shrugs when shake your head. "Fine. I just wanted to know who you were you thinking about when you were using her."

"You want me to say you?"

Josh stares at you for a few seconds and then sighs yet again. "I don’t want you to lie, Donna."

"Do you like the idea that for years I was thinking about you while I pleasured myself?"

"So it was me?"

You shake your head and the smug smile on his face falters. "No, Josh, it was never you. I tried to never think about you in that way."

"You never thought about me as more than a boss? Explain to me why we're together then?" he asks, sounding confused and just a little bit upset.

You reach over to rest your hand on his forearm in an attempt to pacify him. "We're together because we love each other."

"But-"

"Josh, I was your assistant for many years, and we were good friends.. We depended on each other and because of that I never allowed myself to have sexual fantasies about you. It would have been uncomfortable to face you every single day after picturing you doing dirty things to me the night before."

"Never?"

"Uh… no," you lie, and then wrinkle your nose and shrug in defeat. "Okay, obviously I liked – loved – you for several years before anything happened. But the sex stuff? I didn't let myself think that way."

He ponders about this for several seconds and then asks, "So who did you fantasize about?"

"Most of the time, no one. It was just Cleo and me."

"What about the other times?"

"No one in particular, Josh, trust me. Sometimes I would fantasize about a nice strong solid man but he never had a name or face. Just a hard, muscled body." You sigh with frustration. "You know that it's worse that you're jealous of a piece of pink molded silicone that cost me a hundred bucks ten years ago,than an actual man."

He doesn't answer and you can practically see the next question formulating in his brain.

"I swear to God, Josh, if you ask me which one of you I prefer, I will beat you to death with her."

"Okay. Do you like using her?"

"Yes, but I like being with you a lot more. She might be bigger but she's nothing compared to how good you are, Josh. And she doesn't bend in the right way."

"It's creepy that you refer to her as a her. And that you named her."

"We already discussed this! I had to name her because she had a head that looked like Cleopatra. It was appropriate."

"I can't believe I'm in competition with a pink female penis!" he exclaims suddenly.

"And I still can't believe you're jealous of her!" you exclaim. "I get the whole jealous of other men thing, as childish as that makes you seem, but this?"

"This is easier," he whines. "All those years of orgasms I could have given you were wasted on this."

"Oh, please, we're more than making up for it now!" You smile at him. "Think of it this way: wouldn't you rather think of me getting off with a piece of silicone than another man?"

Josh spends a minute pondering this before allowing a grin to break his sulk. "Okay, I like that."

"And," you say softly, sliding your hand up Josh's bare arm to curl around the back of his neck again, "maybe its time for her to be exposed to a man for the first time."

"Uh-"

You clarify your statement before he gets the wrong idea. "On me, Josh. You can use her on me." You waggle your eyebrows at him. "If you want."

Josh considers this suggestion for less than half a second. "Okay." He looks at the boxes stacked around the floor of your bedroom. "What about-"

"It can wait."

"Thank God."

Josh wraps his arms around your shoulder and you lean into his hot body, pressing your mouth against his, coaxing his lips open with your tongue. He grunts softly and quickly pushes you down on to the bed, throwing a leg over your waist, straddling you.

His hands slide under the hem of your tank top, pushing it up over your bare breasts as he bends down to kiss a trail from the waistband of your shorts, then up over your damp stomach and ribs.

And when his mouth finds one of your nipples, you close you eyes and smile.