reviews_and_ramblings | Dear Mister President by Adam Fitzroy

A fictional love story involving the US President is not a new plot, not even if it’s a man on man love story, but the originality here is in the tone of the story, that is dry and precise, but very romantic, and that is probably the most difficult thing, mixing two elements apparently non mixable.

When to Colonel Charles “Chad” Ryan is proposed to become the personal bodyguard of Mister President Doug Kearney, he wonders why such high professional job is offered to a middle level officer like him, but Chad is used to obey to higher order, and so he does this time. The fact that he is gay and instead the President is married and father, and so supposedly straight, is not in question, even if the President was not straight, in now way it would be possible for him to be interested in an average guy like Chad.

But as soon as Chad starts his new life, he realizes that he was set up: the President is way too much friendly, his wife as well, even the daughter treats him like someone of the family; and all people in official capacities around the President are “suggesting” to Chad to be “open” and “receptive” to the President’s advances. The story suddenly turns in one of those medieval historical plots where the innocent maid, with noble origins but no material substances, is offered as a cherished mistress to the king; it’s an important role, even a coveted one, and the feelings of the sacrificial lamb are not considered, after all, it’s only another high professional job.

Chad is not exactly the macho man hero that usually plays the role of the bodyguard; on the contrary he is an average and ordinary man caught in the middle of something bigger than him. He is aroused above the “peasants” by accident, when he saves the President’s life during an official visit, doing the job the Secret Services should do. It was not a heroic act, but more something done by instinct, and Chad is not expecting anything in exchange. Chad is really a good man, faithful and sweet, and he shines only of reflected light, when he is near Doug; otherwise he is always in the shadows.

From what I understood Doug is not a man in the closet, he married Kirsten really believing it was possible for him to conduct a straight life; Kirsten was aware of Doug’s bisexuality and was good with that. But now, at 56 years old, and with all the stress from being one of the most important man in the world, Doug is no more able to suppress his inner desires, and his friends, in according with his wife, plot to find him a right viable, someone who can play the spare wife role, and maybe, in the future, when the President will “retire”, completely substitute Kirsten in that role.

Kirsten is not embittered by all of this, she is neither resigned, she simply accepts the things as they are; Kirsten is more a best friend than a wife to Doug, and I think she entered this marriage with the same attitude, plenty aware that she would be not the one to share the second part of Doug’s life, and probably she neither wants it. She is not a career woman, but without doubt she is not even a woman happy to simply play the wife role. She wants more in life, she has expectations and aspirations, that can’t be replaced by Doug’s love, on the contrary of Chad, who would be entirely happy to fill his life with that love.

Even if dealing with international threatens and world shattering decisions, the novel well balance private and public life, and both are aware of the other: Chad knows that everything he will decide will influence not only his life, but also those of Kirsten and Berry, Doug’s life, and above all, those of the people Doug is running. Despite that, Chad and Doug’s feelings are not underestimated, and I can see an happily ever after out there. More, I wouldn’t mind to read about the next five years in those men’s life.

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