Publishing deal rescues Capitol Hill sex diarist

IT LOOKED like Jessica Cutler’s career was over when she was fired by a United States senator for using the office computer to chronicle her sex life on the internet. But the publishing industry never can resist a good scandal on Capitol Hill.

In a deal said to be worth $300,000 (almost 170,000), the junior aide who shocked Washington with her lurid online "blogs" of sex with congressional colleagues - including a married White House appointee - has been signed up by Hyperion to write a novel based on her encounters.

Given the nature of the author’s "research", the deal seems an unlikely marriage. Hyperion is the publishing arm of Disney, a company noted for its love of all things chaste and wholesome, while Ms Cutler, 26, became known as the Harlot on the Hill.

"I think that the people who have these blogs and post these websites are fascinating," Pilar Queen, of the literary agency Carlisle & Co, told the Washington Post in the course of head-hunting Ms Cutler.

"We’re thinking about a book focused on sex on the Hill, her experiences of working as an intern. Clearly, she has something that she wants to get out there."

Indeed she does; in addition to the book deal, Ms Cutler has agreed to pose nude for Playboy’s November issue.

In the space of just two weeks in May, the former Syracuse University student became the talk of congressional circles with her anonymous web postings in which she shared in graphic detail her simultaneous affairs with six men and crushes on several others, all of them referred to only by their initials.

Writing under the pseudonym Washingtonienne, she gave few clues as to her own identity, save to boast that she had "a glamour job on the Hill" - a generous assessment given that her role later turned out to involve little more than opening envelopes in the post-room of Senator Mike DeWine, an Ohio Republican.

"I could not care less about government or politics, but working for a senator looks good on my resum and these marble hallways are such great places for meeting boys and showing off my outfits," she noted on her site.

It was not just her musings about sexual dalliances that so titillated Washington, but the revelation that some of them paid her for it, which she saw as a means to top up a lamentable $25,000 (less than 14,000) pay cheque.

"Most of my living expenses are thankfully subsidised by a few generous older gentlemen. I’m sure I am not the only one who makes money on the side this way: how can anyone live on $25k a year?" she reasoned.

The cast of characters included "AJ", an intern who worked in the same office; "MK", a "serious long-term boyfriend" who she was seeing again after a break-up; and "R", also known as Threesome Dude.

"W" was a sugar-daddy whose sexual tastes she disapproved of but tolerated because "the money is too good" and "F" was described as a "married man who pays me for sex. Chief of Staff at one of the government agencies, appointed by Bush".

On one blog, she confessed: "I just took a long lunch with F and made a quick $400. When I returned to the office, I heard that my boss was asking about my whereabouts. Loser."

F, it seems, even had a key to her apartment because she got home one day to find he had let himself in and left her a gift of a food blender. "Why didn’t he call first?" she pondered. "What if I was in bed with my intern and F popped in with a surprise blender?"

"MD" was later identified on other internet sites that picked up the story as Matt Doyle, a staffer working for Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, a respected Democrat and family-values champion who ran for vice-president at the 2000 election. Mr Doyle hired Ms Cutler for a two-month internship in Senator Lieberman’s office in January.

Another of her liaisons, "RS", turned out to be Robert Steinbuch, a lawyer who works for Senator DeWine and is also a part-time ethics instructor. Thanks to Ms Cutler, all of Washington now knows that "he likes spanking".

"He’s very up-front about sex, he likes talking dirty and stuff," Ms Cutler confided on her website. "He told me that he likes submissive women. Good, now I can take it easy in bed."

Ms Cutler got the sack after fellow "blogger" Ana Marie Cox - who maintains a political gossip site under the name of Wonkette - outed her as the woman behind Washingtonienne. The two were later spotted partying together, leading to speculation that the whole thing was a publicity-seeking set-up.

If it was, her Hyperion deal is proof that it paid off. Ms Cutler maintains that she only ever wrote the weblog to amuse her friends but is not ashamed of it. In fact, she says of her prolific liaisons: "For most people I know, that’s a typical week."