by Julia Kent
I stuck my tongue in her ear. She squealed, batting at me. “What are you doing?” she gasped, sticking her finger where my tongue had just been.
“Giving you a hint.”
“That cucumber bulging in your pants is all the hint you need to give, Trevor,” she said, grabbing my thigh with a possessiveness that made my cock roar.
“Get a room,” Liam muttered.
“What? It’s Vegas. Can’t you just have sex on the sidewalk, add a coffee can for tips, and turn it into a money-making venture?” I joked. “Why waste great sex on you prudes?”
Liam turned and caught my eye. “Great sex? If your idea of great sex involves sticking something in Darla’s ear, you need some remedial lessons.”
Joe snorted.
Good to know there was life in the backseat.
“Calm yer tits,” she said to me, bursting with attitude. “Plenty of time for that in the hotel room.” Her phone buzzed and she shoved an earbud in, talking in muted tones with the equipment guys who were transporting some of our stuff to the venue. For years we’d done it all ourselves, but never on the scale Darla managed. How she kept track of thousands of little details so we could focus on the music was some kind of miracle.
The SUV pulled into a hotel entrance and we piled out, Liam tipping the guy while we got our luggage. We stood in front of the entrance, grand columns lining the extended overhang, the ground made of marble, lush tropical plants arranged in stately ways.
“It’s like something out of The Bachelor,” Darla gushed, looking around, gawking.
Joe’s eyeroll could have towed a car.
“Let’s go,” he ordered, and we followed him in, Darla balancing a backpack awkwardly in her arms so she could pull out reservations. We got in line to check in, Sam chatting with Liam about some new Dave Smith synthesizer they both liked.
Inside, the lobby rose so high, it almost touched heaven, a great arching series of stained-glass windows gleaming down, casting a sepia-toned color into the crowd. The hotel was beautiful, with people crowding the lobby, the casino visible across the fountains, people of all ages and in various forms of dress going in and out of the revolving doors like ants in a fevered rush.
“Random Acts of Crazy!” shouted a man, and as we turned in unison my eyes locked on a tall, elegant man with long fingers and the most manscaped face I’d ever seen. His words carried an accent, faint but European.
“Giles?” Darla asked, looking surprised and a little scared. The man was wearing a crisp linen suit and loafers so new that they looked like some alligator was still in mourning for her mate.
“Darla! Welcome to the Borgia!” He kissed her on each cheek, but his eyes were attached to Joe, who was completely, angrily oblivious, tapping his toe, not even bothering to hide his frustration with the delay. Giles was the guy we had to thank for booking us, so I plastered on a smile, willed my cock to deflate temporarily, and walked over to shake his hand.
I got a hug instead, the kind of man hug you don’t expect from a stranger. Our bodies touched, top to bottom, chin to neck, chest to chest, groin to groin, knees knocking against each other. His clasp was strong and intimate, almost erotic, just long enough to make my pulse start to jitter and jangle.
By the time he released me I felt like I had been French kissed.
“Trevor!” he rasped, eyes still on Joe.
“Joe,” Darla said quietly. “Let me introduce you to Giles. He’s the one who booked us.”
“Hi.” Joe looked up from his phone, reluctantly put it away, and sauntered over, dispossessed.
“Ah, there he is. Mr. Ross,” Giles said, going in for a hug. I don’t know how Joe did it, but somehow he body checked the guy, a gentle, powerful maneuver that left him in a side hug with a handshake that rivaled Macron’s grip.
“Mmm,” Giles said in a guttural tone that made Liam and Sam shoot me a WTF? look, while Charlotte and Darla suppressed grins.
“Can you help us skip the line and check in?” Joe asked Giles, his voice like a Jedi.
“Absolument!” he said, the French word rolling out of his mouth like he was licking Joe. “Mary Beth!” he called out, clapping his hands twice.
The next sixty seconds were a blur, bellhops grabbing our luggage, keycards magically appearing, bottles of sparkling water and small gold boxes of chocolates in gift bags shaped like swans thrust into our midsections.
In a whirlwind of activity, we found ourselves ushered through back channels to our rooms, Joe engaging in light small talk with Giles, who hung on his every word.
“What is going on?” Charlotte asked. “That guy is eyefucking Joe so hard.”
“And Joe is milking this for all he can,” Darla said, winking.
“If that guy gets two minutes alone with him, it isn’t Joe who will be doing the milking,” Charlotte whispered back, making Liam do that sputtering cough act where you’re covering up laughter.
The elevator dinged and I grabbed Darla’s ass with hard intention, gauging her reaction. She wiggled her butt up against my hand, backing into me so my cock got a little love, too.
Good vibes.
Great vibes.
We practically sprinted down the hall, holding hands, Liam and Charlotte splitting off, Sam lonely at his door, Darla, Joe, and I at our doorway, Giles murmuring quickly to Joe, who cut him off.
And then we were alone in the room.
“How the hell did you play that guy so well?” I asked, unable to help myself, delaying my time with Darla but seriously in awe over what Joe had just done.
“Make people think they’re going to get what they want and you can get them to do damn near anything,” he answered with a shrug, kicking off his shoes and bounding onto the bed.
“Is that all?” Darla asked in a teasing voice, stretching to her tiptoes, her fingertips brushing the ceiling. “You make it sound easy.”
“It is easy.”
“What happens when he comes back to actually fuck you?”
“I tell him no.”
Darla just blinked. Over and over, processing his words.
“You’ll use him and never give him what he wants?”
“Sure. Why not? He wants to use me, right? My mom wants to use me. People use people. It’s what they do. The trick is to use them back and make sure you win.”
“You make it really hard to love you sometimes, Joe.”
“You’re just overwhelmed by my logic.”
“That’s right. You figured me out,” Darla said, grabbing my hand and pulling me into the bathroom. She came to a screeching halt.
“Why is the bathtub right in the middle of the room?” Walking around it like Claire examining a naked Jamie in the Outlander books (Darla made me watch the TV show, which I have to confess was better than I expected), Darla stroked the edge of the tub, which was trimmed with gold.
“It just is. Now, what are you going to do for me?” I said, panting as one of her hands moved to my waistband and began undoing my button.
“Manipulate you into giving me what I want, then drop you cold,” she replied.
“What do you want?”
“Your cock in my mouth.”
“You make it very easy to love you, Darla.”
“I have to.”
“Why?”
“To counterbalance Joe.”
And then she manipulated me into oblivion.
DARLA
Men are so simple.
Just ask them.
They’ll agree with you. Insist that it’s true. Simple creatures who eat, breathe, orgasm. Make sure all three of those are in place and without obstacle and they are content.
After Trevor, Joe came around wanting the same and I gave it to him, except he gave back, too, our fevered sixty-nine leaving me wanting more just at the point where it was too late. You know that moment where you’re going down on a guy and it gets you hot – so hot you realize you need to stop and get on top of him? Men aren’t like women with our all-you-can-eat buffet of
orgasms. They’re single-loader and require reset time.
You let him come in your mouth, then all you’re getting is some tongue and fingers, and while that’s fabulous most of the time, once in awhile you just need the D.
Joe came, I came, and Trevor was snoring lightly by the time we were done. I could tell something was eating away at Joe (aside from me), but the shadowed room, blackout curtains in full force against the dazzling glow of the Strip, wasn’t an inky intimate chamber like it sometimes was after sex.
Being with Joe felt cold and detached, as if he was wrestling with something I couldn’t touch. When he got this way, it was best to treat him nice and simple. We all had our demons, and Lord knew I had my moments when I was there in body but not quite in spirit. In those darker hours, sometimes my body being present was the only way to tease the rest of me back to Trevor and Joe. So I got it. I understood.
Joe needed space at the same time he needed touch. He could want both. Life was messy most of the time, and emotions had a right to be, too. Yeah, I know that contradicts what I said about men being simple. They are.
Emotions, on the other hand, are complex as fuck.
“You hungry?” I asked him as he curled away from me, his calves rubbing up against mine.
“Mmmm? No. Wanna sleep,” he mumbled.
Great. Two snoring men, me wanting more sex, and Las Fucking Vegas out there ready to be conquered. I looked over at Trevor on the other bed, his nice round ass jutting up, one arm across the extra pillows, the rest of him diagonal, sheets tangled at his knees.
Joe, on the other hand, was neatly tucked in, shirtless, his forehead turned down in a frown. The man stayed angry in his sleep, for God’s sake.
Bored and hungry, I stood up, a yawn trying to tell me to get back in bed but a mild growl from my stomach urging me to find those candies Giles gave us. Joe had told me not to eat his, right as he mumbled his way to sleep, but they were the first ones I found, so I gobbled them like I’d swallowed his cock, with a slightly rumpled eagerness and a touch of irritation.
The last one tasted a bit odd, like hazelnuts and hay. Huh. French flavors can get a little too exotic.
Outside, even though the windows were soundproof, the sounds of the Vegas Strip called to me. Limos poured into the street like they were normal, as if everyone had one in Vegas and if you didn’t, why not? We were all rich. We were all lucky. And if you weren’t, it was all your own fault for not trying.
Fuck if I wasn’t gonna try.
Here’s the deal: I spent a lot of time getting ready for this trip, because life had been trying to teach me a lesson. And that lesson was simple.
Don’t just accept what you’re given.
If there was any place where that should be tested, Vegas was it. I could cling to what I had and be safe but never satisfied, or take some risks and have a shot at greatness.
If not greatness, a little more money.
I had a plan.
It just involved borrowing some money from my retirement account for a short time.
See, all those gambling videos I’d been watching weren’t some random thing. Joe and Trevor could tease me as much as they wanted, but there really was strategy in what I was doing. Joe was right.
Trevor was right, too.
And when both of my guys were more right about something than I was, that was one hell of a wake up call from the universe. I had no choice.
I had to listen.
I dressed quietly, making sure not to disturb them, and slipped out into the hall, my room card in my purse. I had a single credit card in my own name that I could easily use to charge up to a grand. Let’s see how much I could make.
For years, Mama traded time for winnings with her sweepstaking. All those companies that offered contests online made it so a disabled woman could spend her days being occupied and eventually winning some fun little goodies. I thought it was silly fun, something to pull Mama out of the dark little hole she lived in. What I later realized was that it connected her to other people, and as we figured out ways for her to spend more time online, she started to blossom.
And win some really weird shit.
Sweeping isn’t that much like gambling. I wasn’t planning to go downstairs and leverage my retirement for a year’s supply of beef-flavored gum or bacteria-sensing reusable tampon holders.
I was going to win cash.
The elevator dinged and I got on with a cute couple wearing party hats and holding hands. They were making out, so I stepped aside, a warm feeling diffusing through me. Maybe it was the taste of Joe and Trevor still in my mouth, along with those chocolates Giles gave Joe, but I felt so good suddenly. Like my heart expanded in my chest and I was just all warm sunshine about people. All people.
Even the tonsil-hockey-playing grey-hairs in front of me.
We reached the casino lobby for the resort. I couldn’t believe I was really here, at the Borgia. I’d heard about this place for years. It was featured on game shows sometimes as an all-inclusive package people could win. My hometown was going to need a gallon of Visine for collective dry eyes when theirs popped out of their head after Mama told everybody where my band was playing.
We had made it.
I navigated around the elevator lovers, turning left just to go somewhere. Away. A blast of deodorizer and cigarette smoke hit me, along with air so air conditioned, it might as well be the arctic.
And there they were.
The tables.
To my left, I saw poker, roulette – you name it, all laid out in neat, tight rows.
To the right, slot machines as far as the eye could see.
I looked left. Then right.
To the right were my people. Dressed in flannels and jeans, loose t-shirts and simple short-sleeved floral prints, the men and women at the casino slot machines were, by and large, copies of all the people I knew from Ohio, like someone plucked ten people from Peters and just copied and pasted them. Over and over I saw them, a glow filling me.
This was a sign, right? I should give the slots a chance. I had won that twenty bucks back at the airport, so maybe turning to the right was a better idea.
“Slots are definitely more her thing,” said a snooty voice behind me, the added sniff the cherry on top. I turned to see a woman who looked like a copy and paste, too.
Of every elitist, stuck-up bitch I’d met in Boston.
She wore her hair in a layered look with a calculated blend of highlights and lowlights, designed to look sun kissed. Makeup was perfect, her clothes tailored for that casual beach look, but it was all calibrated, her fashion less about creativity and more about precision engineering. She stood next to an older guy, easily twenty years her senior, who was rubbing the small of her back like she was a talisman, a bottle with a genie in it he was trying to unleash.
“Victoria,” he murmured in that low, cultured way rich men have, as if chiding her while cheering her on.
I did a double-take, though, because that man looked just enough like an older version of my daddy that I blinked hard. If Charlie Jennings had aged well and dressed in fine, tailored suits, he’d have looked a lot like that man. The warm glow growing inside me plumed. I tried not to stare.
“This place has certainly gone downhill since you brought me two years ago,” she said, pointedly making eye contact with me.
Me.
Pretty girls have this way of looking at people like me, where their laser eyes comb over my body from top to bottom, cataloguing all my fashion failures through their lens of perfection. The comparison is glaringly obvious, but for years I thought they didn’t know how blatant their visual judging was, and snickered behind their backs for how shallow they showed themselves to be.
But then I reconsidered.
And realized it was so much worse.
They knew. They knew and reveled in it. The condescending inventory was done on purpose. It was a show designed to draw attention not to the victim, but to the pretty girl. Not to show off her loo
ks.
It was to make sure she secured her queen bee status.
I bit my lips and turned away from the slot machines, marching right on over to the roulette table. I’d already taken out my entire retirement account in cash. All eight hundred thirty-six dollars was sitting in a bundle of fifties in my purse, ready for me to double it.
This is the part where you think I’m crazy.
And you would be right.
Except I’d studied this. Really. I had about a three percent chance of winning, but it’s not quite that simple. No, I haven’t taken a probability and statistics class like Joe and Trevor both did in college. I’m not there yet in my studies. But I do have a phone and can access YouTube, and when you can do that you are an expert on anything.
Anything.
Need to change a diaper? YouTube. Pop an ear zit? YouTube. Change a burned-out dashboard light on a 2003 Honda Civic? YouTube.
Learn how to milk a prostate?
Okay… YouPorn. Wrong place. Never mind.
Cashier’s window first. My wad of eight hundred dollars was quickly converted into chips of twenty, fifty, and one hundred dollars. Enough to fill my cupped hand, but no more. All my savings in one tiny, ineffective pile. It made me feel small. Inadequate.
Behind the rest of the world.
I walked up to the roulette tables and picked one, which had five people and the dealer scattered around it. I knew from the videos what I needed to do. Squaring my shoulders, I made polite eye contact with the four men and one woman there. Dealer wore a casino uniform made of a striped purple and black vest, a black shirt, and a name tag that said Mario.
Watching the wheel in real time was night and day different from observing via video. First of all, the scent of the casino air was overwhelming. A hint of exotic tobacco tinged with desperation sweat, expensive perfumes, and an intangible odor that made me feel exhilarated, refreshed, eager.
Ready to take on the world.
Twenty minutes of watching hypnotized me, the steady stream of people walking between the tables a form of entertainment in and of itself. So many different kinds of people walked by. I saw men in spa bathrobes, short little women using walkers, old people shuffling between the slots and the bathroom, women wearing hijab, every race and shade of skin. One guy carried a giant gold cross on his back, strapped to him with small bungee cords.