fic: drink you sober (roger/joan)
mad men roger/joan. 1487 words. rated r. you were a lucky bastard.
one.
You will die in 1968. The third heart attack will do it. Your second wife will have left you by then (and no, it’s not because she got tired of your old man’s ass, it’s because you wore the hell out of her) and you will die on the bathroom floor and nobody will find you until you don’t show up at work three days later.
And the really sad thing is that if you knew this, it wouldn’t change anything. Some people would go make proclamations of love or try mistakenly to fix their health or they’d even just think about it and notice things like the taste of scotch or how women’s lips are sort of hard and soft at the same time or how your wife has a lover, did you know that, a guy from another agency who she met at one of the parties (so much for cheating being just for the boys).
Your buddy Don would run off and travel across the country like the overgrown Beat-boy he is and pick up ass and drink and even take acid and be miserable but enjoy it, somehow.
But you?
You’d laugh and you’d shrug.
two.
You fuck her for the first time as Mrs. Harris after your granddaughter is born. It depresses you, it shouldn’t, but it does and you get the phone call and you look at yourself in the mirror and the bastard in the mirror looks old and having Jane at home doesn’t make you any younger--it makes you seem older, somehow.You wonder if you’re pathetic. You don’t want to think about it.
You ask Don to stay for drinks with you after work but he says he has an appointment (there’s something funny about the inflection he puts on ‘appointment’) and you end up getting plastered in your ugly office, with the funny glass walls that are supposed to be modern. You hate modernity.
You’re filling up the second one or so when you see her in the doorway, her hair sprayed into some odd shape, wearing a dress that cuts her in half--black on the left, white on the right. Her ass swings while she walks. You light a cigarette. You smile a bit.
Her lips are always so pale these days. You miss when she wore lipstick.
“Doing overtime, Mr. Sterling?”
She smirks.
“I’m a grandfather.”
One of her eyebrows raises. She laughs a little. She seems to be mocking you.
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” It carries something of the undertone of go to hell.
“Mind if I join you?”
You gesture towards the seat next to you. She folds herself out across the seat. The edge of her thigh brushes up against your leg. Her perfume is different.
She takes your glass out of your hand.
“Drink’s a little strong for you, Joanie.”
“I think I’ll manage.”
She takes it down with a gulp. It’s a man’s drink, really but it doesn’t go down hard, she just grimaces a little, then smiles. Her lips curve upward.
“Don’t have a date tonight?” you ask.
“I’m married, Roger.”
“Ah, yes. I keep forgetting that.”
“I don’t.”
There is a pause.
“So, was I right?”
“About?”
“I said he used to be Jewish, didn’t I?”
“Yes?”
“Well, I assume you must have found out with some certainty at some point. You know, with his--”
She hits you.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“So?”
“I don’t know what you want from me, Mr. Sterling.”
You kiss her. Well, kiss is one word for it and kind of a misnomer because pretty much as soon as your lips are on hers, your left hand is also cupping her ass and the other hand is on her tit and you’re leaning her backward and you can’t even describe it, almost, the near-sensory overload that is Joan and your teeth biting lightly into her thick lips and the Coke-bottle curve of tits and waist and hips and even just the perfume and it’s too much, she’s too much for you, she always was.
“Not here,” she says, and there’s something odd in how she says it, something fragile you haven’t heard before.
“Come on, Joanie,” you say into her neck, “Don’t you want to christen the new agency?”
“We never did it in the office.”
“It’s a different office.”
She takes a breath. Her mouth shifts a bit.
“Yes, I guess it is.”
“Don’t you have an ounce of pity for a lonely man?”
She laughs.
“You’re not lonely.”
She’s always understood you better than you understood her. That’s just something you take as part of the territory.
You unzip the back of her dress. Her thighs are wrapped around you (you are drowning in her), she undoes your pants in one quick motion. You are pushing into her and all you can see are her lips, taller than buildings and she’s all around you and up against you and she really is something else, isn’t she?
She is. She really is.
She gets up afterward. She leaves you lying there. Of course she does.
three.
You have a hard time believing she’s faithful in her husband’s absence. You just do. Oh, you guess it’s not beyond her, she did have a habit of taking only one lover at a time, back when she was office manager, back in the old days. But the truth is, the man’s gone and she doesn’t seem to even care about him too much anyway. So you wonder who it is.
You look around the office, you look at the younger guys, the ones you don’t know, the ones you do. You can picture it, her legs wrapped around their hips, her mouth on their necks, them pawing at her tits.
It’s the price of a woman who looks like that, you think. You'll always wonder.
You have another drink.
four.
“You ever fuck Joan?”
You and Don are at some bar you haven’t been to before. You’ve forged a kind of peace--business, after all, is in the end more important than any woman.
“No.” Don is matter of fact.
“Well, that’s a relief.” You pause. “Why not?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Well, do you think there’s something wrong with her?”
“She’s a magnificent woman.”
“That she is.”
“Not my type, though, I think.”
“Draper, are you a faggot?”
He laughs. He doesn’t seem bothered by you. Man can’t seem to get drunk, even.
“I’ve always liked women who were more of a challenge.”
That doesn’t make much sense to you. Not the challenge part--you understand that well enough--but the part where she isn’t one. You’re not sure if he’s calling her a whore. You don’t know.
five.
You couldn’t have cared about her in round one, or maybe you did and you didn’t realize it but back then she was there and you were there and she was beautiful, yes, but you didn’t think about it, not in the terms you do now, anyway. You were a lucky bastard and you didn’t know.
You remember her, in the apartment, corset and garters and stockings and heels and she leaned over and her breasts were hanging over you and she smirked, she always knew how much you wanted her, always, you remember her working on you with her hand, you always fucked in the daytime, you don’t think you ever did it at night.
You were a lucky bastard.
six.
It never becomes a full affair, not the second time.There are a few times after that, at the office. It’s always too fast and you feel like she’s slipping away from you and it’s in a kind of cloud of alcohol and there’s never enough, there just isn’t. You saw through her the first time, you knew she was playing hard to get and it worked anyway and you remember her crying when you broke it off and you had the upper hand then, you guess. But you don’t anymore. You’re not getting it back.
“I can’t go here again,” she says after work.
“We’re not going anywhere, Holloway.”
She laughs.
seven.
1968 and you die on the floor.
One minute you’re there and then you’re not. There’s nothing dramatic about it.
It takes them a week to take your name off the building. You were a fucking bastard, you know that?
one.
You will die in 1968. The third heart attack will do it. Your second wife will have left you by then (and no, it’s not because she got tired of your old man’s ass, it’s because you wore the hell out of her) and you will die on the bathroom floor and nobody will find you until you don’t show up at work three days later.
And the really sad thing is that if you knew this, it wouldn’t change anything. Some people would go make proclamations of love or try mistakenly to fix their health or they’d even just think about it and notice things like the taste of scotch or how women’s lips are sort of hard and soft at the same time or how your wife has a lover, did you know that, a guy from another agency who she met at one of the parties (so much for cheating being just for the boys).
Your buddy Don would run off and travel across the country like the overgrown Beat-boy he is and pick up ass and drink and even take acid and be miserable but enjoy it, somehow.
But you?
You’d laugh and you’d shrug.
two.
You fuck her for the first time as Mrs. Harris after your granddaughter is born. It depresses you, it shouldn’t, but it does and you get the phone call and you look at yourself in the mirror and the bastard in the mirror looks old and having Jane at home doesn’t make you any younger--it makes you seem older, somehow.You wonder if you’re pathetic. You don’t want to think about it.
You ask Don to stay for drinks with you after work but he says he has an appointment (there’s something funny about the inflection he puts on ‘appointment’) and you end up getting plastered in your ugly office, with the funny glass walls that are supposed to be modern. You hate modernity.
You’re filling up the second one or so when you see her in the doorway, her hair sprayed into some odd shape, wearing a dress that cuts her in half--black on the left, white on the right. Her ass swings while she walks. You light a cigarette. You smile a bit.
Her lips are always so pale these days. You miss when she wore lipstick.
“Doing overtime, Mr. Sterling?”
She smirks.
“I’m a grandfather.”
One of her eyebrows raises. She laughs a little. She seems to be mocking you.
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” It carries something of the undertone of go to hell.
“Mind if I join you?”
You gesture towards the seat next to you. She folds herself out across the seat. The edge of her thigh brushes up against your leg. Her perfume is different.
She takes your glass out of your hand.
“Drink’s a little strong for you, Joanie.”
“I think I’ll manage.”
She takes it down with a gulp. It’s a man’s drink, really but it doesn’t go down hard, she just grimaces a little, then smiles. Her lips curve upward.
“Don’t have a date tonight?” you ask.
“I’m married, Roger.”
“Ah, yes. I keep forgetting that.”
“I don’t.”
There is a pause.
“So, was I right?”
“About?”
“I said he used to be Jewish, didn’t I?”
“Yes?”
“Well, I assume you must have found out with some certainty at some point. You know, with his--”
She hits you.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“So?”
“I don’t know what you want from me, Mr. Sterling.”
You kiss her. Well, kiss is one word for it and kind of a misnomer because pretty much as soon as your lips are on hers, your left hand is also cupping her ass and the other hand is on her tit and you’re leaning her backward and you can’t even describe it, almost, the near-sensory overload that is Joan and your teeth biting lightly into her thick lips and the Coke-bottle curve of tits and waist and hips and even just the perfume and it’s too much, she’s too much for you, she always was.
“Not here,” she says, and there’s something odd in how she says it, something fragile you haven’t heard before.
“Come on, Joanie,” you say into her neck, “Don’t you want to christen the new agency?”
“We never did it in the office.”
“It’s a different office.”
She takes a breath. Her mouth shifts a bit.
“Yes, I guess it is.”
“Don’t you have an ounce of pity for a lonely man?”
She laughs.
“You’re not lonely.”
She’s always understood you better than you understood her. That’s just something you take as part of the territory.
You unzip the back of her dress. Her thighs are wrapped around you (you are drowning in her), she undoes your pants in one quick motion. You are pushing into her and all you can see are her lips, taller than buildings and she’s all around you and up against you and she really is something else, isn’t she?
She is. She really is.
She gets up afterward. She leaves you lying there. Of course she does.
three.
You have a hard time believing she’s faithful in her husband’s absence. You just do. Oh, you guess it’s not beyond her, she did have a habit of taking only one lover at a time, back when she was office manager, back in the old days. But the truth is, the man’s gone and she doesn’t seem to even care about him too much anyway. So you wonder who it is.
You look around the office, you look at the younger guys, the ones you don’t know, the ones you do. You can picture it, her legs wrapped around their hips, her mouth on their necks, them pawing at her tits.
It’s the price of a woman who looks like that, you think. You'll always wonder.
You have another drink.
four.
“You ever fuck Joan?”
You and Don are at some bar you haven’t been to before. You’ve forged a kind of peace--business, after all, is in the end more important than any woman.
“No.” Don is matter of fact.
“Well, that’s a relief.” You pause. “Why not?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Well, do you think there’s something wrong with her?”
“She’s a magnificent woman.”
“That she is.”
“Not my type, though, I think.”
“Draper, are you a faggot?”
He laughs. He doesn’t seem bothered by you. Man can’t seem to get drunk, even.
“I’ve always liked women who were more of a challenge.”
That doesn’t make much sense to you. Not the challenge part--you understand that well enough--but the part where she isn’t one. You’re not sure if he’s calling her a whore. You don’t know.
five.
You couldn’t have cared about her in round one, or maybe you did and you didn’t realize it but back then she was there and you were there and she was beautiful, yes, but you didn’t think about it, not in the terms you do now, anyway. You were a lucky bastard and you didn’t know.
You remember her, in the apartment, corset and garters and stockings and heels and she leaned over and her breasts were hanging over you and she smirked, she always knew how much you wanted her, always, you remember her working on you with her hand, you always fucked in the daytime, you don’t think you ever did it at night.
You were a lucky bastard.
six.
It never becomes a full affair, not the second time.There are a few times after that, at the office. It’s always too fast and you feel like she’s slipping away from you and it’s in a kind of cloud of alcohol and there’s never enough, there just isn’t. You saw through her the first time, you knew she was playing hard to get and it worked anyway and you remember her crying when you broke it off and you had the upper hand then, you guess. But you don’t anymore. You’re not getting it back.
“I can’t go here again,” she says after work.
“We’re not going anywhere, Holloway.”
She laughs.
seven.
1968 and you die on the floor.
One minute you’re there and then you’re not. There’s nothing dramatic about it.
It takes them a week to take your name off the building. You were a fucking bastard, you know that?