She hadn’t felt that she needed to pee before taking the woman’s mind over, but now it was really strong. Power of suggestion or reality, she didn’t know, but she didn’t want to test it.
Jewel headed at a quick march back down the hallway to where they had passed restrooms with Tommy following close behind.
THIRTY-ONE
THEY SPENT THE rest of the afternoon exploring along the giant Fremont Street covered mall area, looking into gift shops and playing tourist. Tommy was impressed at how nice the entire area felt. Tourist, yet welcoming and comfortable, at least as much as a casino culture could be welcoming.
They went back into the Golden Nugget and were heading for the buffet when they passed the poker room.
“Shall we test a little something,” Tommy asked, pulling Jewel off to one side near some empty slot machines and out of the traffic pattern.
“We got forty-eight hours until the senator arrives to do just that,” Jewel said.
“I want to see what it would be like to play some poker,” Tommy said pointing to a table with five guys around it. From the looks of the chips and such, it was a no-limit hold’em game.
“This should be interesting to watch,” Jewel said.
“Don’t play poker?” he asked.
“Strip poker once in high school. Bored and scared at the same time.”
Tommy just was never going to be surprised at Jewel. She had so many levels that he wanted to keep learning about.
“You’re going to have to tell me all about that later,” he said, giving her a smile.
“Have fun,” she said as she moved over and stood with her back against a wall close to the table.
Tommy picked a young man with brown hair who had the least amount of chips at the table and sat down with him. The guy was named Richmond and he played every day in one room or another in Vegas. He was good, but he didn’t make a lot of money at it. Just barely enough for a small apartment, a car payment on a used Lexus, and food, mostly with coupons at buffets.
The guy wanted to prove to his family and friends back home that he had the ability to play and be a professional, but after six months now in Vegas, he was starting to have his doubts. He had a master’s degree in math and really had no desire to teach college.
Tommy stood, staying attached to the guy as the dealer shuffled and started to deal. “This kid’s name is Richmond and he is a good guy,” Tommy said to Jewel. “I’m going to see if I can give him a boost.
As Richmond looked at his cards, Tommy could see he had a pair of tens. A decent starting hand, but not great. The kid would have to play it right or fold it.
Tommy reached over and picked up the ghost cards for the man across from Tommy. He had a king-seven suited. Horrid. The next guy over came out with a twenty dollar raise with a pair of sevens. The right play. The next guy folded before Tommy could see his cards, but the guy next to Richmond hesitated and Tommy picked up his cards to see a pair of nines.
The guy called. Richmond had the best hand, but he had no way of knowing it. Both the raiser and the caller were good players, so chances are they had strong hands. Richmond was about to fold, but Tommy stopped him.
Then in Richmond’s mind he put the simple thought, “The reason these guys run over you is that you play scared and they can see it.”
Richmond stopped.
Tommy could see that the realization that Richmond had been playing scared made sense to him. He looked down. He had about seventy in front of him.
Tommy smiled when Richmond pushed his chips forward. “Raise all in.”
The initial raiser stared at Richmond, then folded his small pair. The guy beside Richmond folded as well, and Richmond took down the forty dollars plus blinds.
Tommy sat with the kid for two more hands as the kid went back to tossing bad cards away.
On the fourth hand, Richmond called the five dollar blind with a ten jack. Three others called and the first three cards on the board came out Ace, queen, six, missing Richmond completely.
“Aggressive,” Tommy planted in his mind.
Richmond nodded, as if understanding and bet out thirty. He got one caller.
Next card on the board was a four.
Tommy wasn’t even going to look at what the other players’ cards were. If he was going to help this kid take the next step to making his dream, he had to help him cleanly.
Tommy nodded and bet out forty bucks.
The guy who had called him the first time looked at the board and then called.
Richmond clearly thought “The guy is waiting for a flush. More than likely has a pair of kings.”
The last card was a jack that made Richmond’s straight, but did not match the suit on the board.
Richmond didn’t even hesitate. He shoved his entire stack of chips forward again.
The guy shook his head and tossed in his cards and Richmond pulled the pot once again.
“Alternate timid and scared with aggressive,” Tommy planted in Richmond’s mind. “They won’t know what hit them.”
Again Richmond nodded and Tommy stood and moved over to Jewel.
“Was it fun?” she asked.
“It was because Richmond there is a good kid with a dream. Felt good to help him a little.”
Jewel looked at Tommy. “When did you learn how to play top-level poker?”
Tommy laughed, not wanting to tell her right there that he had earned some of his way through college by playing online poker before they banned it. And that one of his drunken trips to Vegas was playing in the World Series of Poker main event. He hadn’t started drinking until he got knocked out of the tournament on the third day.
“After you tell me about your strip poker,” Tommy said, “I’ll tell you about how I learned how to play poker.”
“Deal,” Jewel said, giving him a sexy smile with those green eyes that promised a wonderful evening ahead.
They stood there watching the table for another ten minutes in which time Richmond took down another big pot.
Suddenly Tommy had an idea. He turned to Jewel. “How about I get inside the senator and plant in his mind that he really, really needs to play poker after he gets done with his meeting here?”
“So he doesn’t go back to his room until very late?” Jewel said.
“Poker rooms are open all night,” Tommy said, smiling. “How about he never goes back to his room? If I’m inside him, I can keep him alert and playing and winning until he needs to catch a flight.”
“You think it might really be that easy to stop this attack?” Jewel asked.
Tommy had no doubt that it wouldn’t be that easy to save this senator. “No, I don’t. But it might be a start to a plan.”
“And a good one,” she said, nodding.
THIRTY-TWO
BY THE TIME they got through most of their lunch in the sparsely filled Golden Nugget Buffet, Jewel had more questions about how to fight these other ghosts that neither of them had answers to.
She had thought that she would just have a salad for lunch after the huge dinner last night and breakfast this morning, but after the salad, she had gone back for some wonderful deep-fried shrimp, some freshly cut turkey, and some corn-on-the-cob dipped in butter.
And it all tasted wonderful.
“We need to talk with K.J. again,” Jewel said, wiping some of the butter from the corn from her mouth and the side of her face. Ghost food was as messy as real food it seemed. Ghost food just tasted better, as if they were taking the essence of the food out of it.
Tommy nodded. Then he said into the air, “K.J., when you get a chance, we have some questions.”
This time K.J. appeared in a tight pink dress, black gloves up to his elbows, and bright red lipstick. He had a black, wide-brimmed felt hat on and he looked to Jewel like he was straight out of the 1940s. He was also wearing bright ruby shoes and carrying a wicker picnic basket with a pink ribbon on it.
The tight dress showed areas of K.J. that Jewel was sure he want
ed to show. He clearly wasn’t wearing any underwear at all under the tight cloth.
Tommy blinked twice, and Jewel was proud of him for not laughing or saying something.
“Like the outfit?” K.J. said, spinning around once before sitting in an extra chair at the table. “It’s my costume for tonight’s costume ball.”
“What are you going as?” Jewel asked.
K.J. smiled. “A slutty old Queen Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz,” he said. He reached into his basket and pulled out a long, pink penis-shaped vibrator.
“Meet Toto,” he said, petting the long vibrator like it was a dog.
Jewel loved it and laughed. Tommy laughed, but looked just a little shocked. She liked that about him.
“So much about my coming night’s adventures,” K.J. said. “Or better put, my night’s coming adventures.”
He laughed at that play on words and then looked at Tommy. “What’s the questions?”
“If the senator is killed playing poker, will that cause the problems?”
Jewel watched as K.J. seemed to be listening off into the distance, then he came back into his dark eyes. “No. What causes the problem is if the senator dies in a compromising position in his room with a teenaged girl.”
“Good,” Tommy said.
“If one or both of us are inside a person,” Jewel asked, “and someone from the Brigade wants to get inside, how do we stop them?”
“Fill the entire body,” K.J. said. “Did you try riding in the same person?”
“Yes,” Jewel said.
“And it felt like we were both in there, cuddled together,” Tommy said.
Jewel nodded.
“If you don’t want someone to join you,” K.J. said, “just imagine yourself filling every inch of the person’s body, matching the person in size and shape. No one can get in then with you. Might need to practice that a few times.”
“But that would let the Brigade know there was a Ghost Agent inside the person, right?” Tommy asked.
“Afraid so,” K.J. said, nodding, his big felt hat flopping as he did so.
“So if the Brigade agent started firing at the person I was inside,” Tommy asked, “would I be hit?”
“Not if you went to the person’s toes,” K.J. said. “Remember you can move around inside of people as much as you want, be as big or as small as you need to be inside there.”
Both Tommy and Jewel nodded. Jewel could see all kinds of possibilities, but she wasn’t sure how any of them would work.
“Looks like you two agents have some practicing to do before you start your first mission,” K.J. said.
He stood and twirled around in his tight, pink dress and ruby-red slippers. Then he pulled Toto from the basket and waving the big pink vibrator he said, “Me and the big dog here have some baying at the moon to do.”
Then he clicked his heals together three times saying three times, “There’s no place like an orgy.”
Then he vanished, leaving them sitting with their mouths open.
THIRTY-THREE
AFTER LUNCH BUT still in the buffet, in quick practice sessions, Tommy occupied a man completely and Jewel failed in trying to join him, saying that it felt like she was just running into a normal person.
Then they reversed that a few times on different people in the buffet, Jewel in the women, Tommy in the men.
To Tommy, when Jewel fully occupied the woman, it felt as if he could actually touch the woman. Tommy figured that had some interesting possibilities down the road, but not for this first mission.
Then they both climbed into a woman who wanted to go back for another helping, but was afraid of what her husband would say about her weight. He wanted her to stay very, very thin.
They had her stand up anyway and go for a third plate of food, and while she was walking and they were controlling her, they went to her feet, Jewel in the right foot, Tommy in the left. Worked fine.
Tommy felt like he was a tiny person inside a giant. He could still see out of the woman’s eyes and control her, but from a distance.
“That was weird,” Jewel had said after they got the woman back to the table and her frowning husband. “As a doctor, having that skill would have sure come in handy to explore what was wrong with someone.”
“You’re still a doctor,” Tommy said. “And it’s going to come in real handy tomorrow, I hope.”
After a bunch of experiments with other customers, they decided to head back out to the MGM Grand.
Tommy took over a cab driver just to make sure he could drive while in control of someone. He wanted to make sure that was possible and thankfully, it was.
After they got back to their hotel and got out of the cab in the huge parking area, Jewel practiced walking a woman into the hotel while in her right foot.
“Don’t let me join you,” Tommy said as they neared the front desk of the hotel in the huge front lobby and then he just tried to step into the woman. No luck. Jewel had gone from the woman’s foot to filling her completely in just a fraction of a second.
“Well done,” Tommy said as Jewel appeared out of the woman, smiling. “That seemed almost instantaneous.”
“Speed of thought,” Jewel said, watching the woman walk away.
“What’s wrong?” Tommy asked.
Jewel turned and looked at him and Tommy could see a real depth of seriousness in her eyes, something in their short time together he hadn’t seen much of yet. He liked it and it worried him.
“As you said, I’m still a doctor.”
Tommy nodded. “You are. So what’s wrong?”
Jewel pointed at that woman. “After you said that, I decided just how much I could sort of scan about a person. So as I entered her and went to her foot, I also scanned her body. Amazing I can do that like that. Just amazing.”
“But she has something wrong?” Tommy asked, glancing over at what appeared to be a perfectly healthy mid-thirties woman waiting in line at the desk. She wasn’t thin, but she wasn’t heavy, either. She had short black hair and looked like a businesswoman of some sort by the pantsuit she wore and comfortable shoes.
“She does,” Jewel said, also looking at the woman and nodding. “She used to be a smoker and she has the start of lung cancer in her right lung. Still small, but it needs to be caught now.”
Tommy kept staring at the woman. It was amazing what they were learning about people by just suddenly being inside them. He knew that three days ago, when he was still alive, the very idea of another person poking around inside his body would have appalled him and made him angry.
Now it was starting to feel natural for him to do as they practiced more.
“Did you give her a suggestion that she have a check-up?” Tommy asked.
“I did,” Jewel said. “But she already has one scheduled in eight months and her doctor won’t catch it in time, if they even notice it then.”
“Would they catch it if they did a chest x-ray of her lungs?” Tommy asked.
“Without a doubt,” Jewel said. “The tumor is big enough.”
Tommy looked again at the woman still waiting for an open clerk to check in. She looked perfectly healthy. “So let’s send her to the hospital.”
“How do you suggest we do that?” Jewel asked.
“We have two choices, as I see it,” Tommy said, smiling at Jewel. “We either get inside her and trigger some sort of breathing attack that forces her to be taken by an ambulance to the hospital.”
“Think we can do that?” Jewel asked, a serious expression on her face and in her green eyes, clearly trying to figure out how medically she could do that.
“I’m sure there’s a lot of things that we can do that we don’t know about yet,” Tommy said, smiling at the woman he was quickly starting to fall deeply for. “But I think my second way is much better.”
“What’s that?”
“We just jump back inside her and make her take herself to the hospital,” Tommy said, “When we get her there, she can complain of inte
nse shortness of breath and maybe we can make her look like she’s passed out there to get some quick action. Then we jump into the doctor and suggest to the doctor that they need to look for a lung tumor.”
Jewel just shook her head, smiling. “I’m still not thinking like I can control other people.”
“Too many patients not doing as you asked, huh?”
“Far too many,” she said, laughing. “So let’s go save this woman’s life and then come back to our suite.”
“And then what?” Tommy asked.
“Then we practice something else that has to do with a shower and a big bed.”
“I like that kind of practice,” Tommy said, laughing, as they moved toward the woman in line.
THIRTY-FOUR
JEWEL STRETCHED, NAKED on the big bed. She must have dozed off a little. Tommy was on his back, a sheet covering him from the waist down. She was pretty sure he was asleep.
And her stomach was rumbling, she was so hungry. It was well after eight in the evening and that lunch in the buffet had been a long time ago.
They had taken the woman to the hospital to save her life, then come back and had some wonderful times in the shower and then back here on the bed.
Jewel turned to lie on her side, facing him, just staring at his handsome face and watching him breath lightly, his strong chest moving up and down.
Sex with Tommy was so much more intense than she had ever experienced before. Some of that might be from being a ghost, but she had a hunch that sex with Tommy would have been wonderful even if they were alive.
They just fit together, and she was starting to wonder what she had done before the last three days without him in her life. They had already packed a lot of living in their deaths, and she had a hunch it wasn’t going to slow down any time soon.
At least she hoped it wouldn’t.
“You ready to go again?” he asked without opening his eyes.
She laughed and moved against him, cuddling under his arm and putting her head on his shoulder. Her stomach rumbled again. “Aren’t you hungry?”
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