looking after him?”
“He doesn’t have one. A girl who works days, at the grain elevator? She sits with Sam till she goes to work.”
“You don’t look old enough to have a five-year-old.”
“I was fifteen.”
“Makes you twenty?”
“I’m twenty. You’re nice.”
“You’re nice, too, Candace.”
There was quite a bit more, but that’s as interesting as it got, and anyway you get the drift.
She smelled good—most of the dancers were doused in what used to be called dimestore perfume, but she had on Giorgio, or a reasonable facsimile. She had the usual heavy makeup, clownish cheeks, blue eyeshadow, pink lip gloss, but that was par for the course these days even for non-stripper girls. Even though she didn’t grind, I had a raging hard-on. My shorts were in ruins.
Another stripper, a skinny brunette with big but real breasts, came over and whispered in Candace’s ear, then went away.
Candace beamed at me. “Lover boy’s picked somebody else out! He’s on his second table dance already. I think I’m in the clear. You’re very sweet, Jack.”
I had told her my name was Jack.
Then she gave me a kiss.
Long and kind of real.
After that, she gave me a more legit V.I.P. room treatment for the rest of the song (“Hit Me with Your Best Shot”), and then led me back into the strip club. I tried to give her a twenty but I swear (unbelievable, but it happened) she wouldn’t take it.
I probably could have bought a legit table dance from her at that point, but I’d had all I could take. I went and sat in the rear of the smoky, mirrored room, focused on fake tits and disco lights until my erection went down, then wandered back into the middle bar. No more beer for me. I asked for and got a Diet Coke.
It was almost one, and I had a game to play.
Chapter Seven
About the same square footage as the strip club’s V.I.P. lounge, the private poker room was tucked behind the Lucky Devil’s main bar, though with no access from there. And of course the way in from the casino was guarded by one of those ubiquitous bouncers on boxes.
You’ve heard of wall-to-wall carpeting—well, this room had carpeting on the walls, plush, cream-color stuff, much thicker than the more normal-pile (but same color) carpet on the floor. Matching built-in couches ran along all the walls except the one adjacent the parking lot, which had an exit-only door and, more prominently, a big black padded Naugahyde wet bar with black shelving heavy with booze on one side and a stereo set-up on the other. A busty little platinum blonde in the standard Lucky Devil black spandex minidress was tending bar (and the stereo); right now she was filling bowls with chips and pretzels and such, her big brown eyes having no more expression than her raccoon mascara.
The decor was less eccentric than practical—sound-proofing was the order of the day, or night anyway, and the low-slung ceiling tile was part of how this chamber could be so quiet in the thick of a club where each room was noisier than the last. The track lighting was subdued, but the big hexagonal table was the target of a Tiffany-style hanging lamp. Though the billiard feltwas new, the table appeared old, its maple handrails showing wear, and the chip wells and drink-holders (despite fresh cork) had the look of a craftsman who’d operated long ago.
I was the first player to arrive, other than my host, a tall, slender guy in a lightweight white suit over a gray shirt and skinny white tie, very hip and New Wave, only his well-oiled Frankie-Avalon-circa-1958 pompadour undercut it. His hands were free of rings, but that was because he’d removed them before starting to shuffle, putting them in his drink well—gold rings encrusted with just a few fewer precious gems than the Maltese Falcon.
Jerry Giovanni, suspiciously tan for a Midwesterner—Florida trips, maybe, or tanning bed access—was almost handsome, a slightly horsier-looking John Travolta.
Pausing in his shuffling,
“He doesn’t have one. A girl who works days, at the grain elevator? She sits with Sam till she goes to work.”
“You don’t look old enough to have a five-year-old.”
“I was fifteen.”
“Makes you twenty?”
“I’m twenty. You’re nice.”
“You’re nice, too, Candace.”
There was quite a bit more, but that’s as interesting as it got, and anyway you get the drift.
She smelled good—most of the dancers were doused in what used to be called dimestore perfume, but she had on Giorgio, or a reasonable facsimile. She had the usual heavy makeup, clownish cheeks, blue eyeshadow, pink lip gloss, but that was par for the course these days even for non-stripper girls. Even though she didn’t grind, I had a raging hard-on. My shorts were in ruins.
Another stripper, a skinny brunette with big but real breasts, came over and whispered in Candace’s ear, then went away.
Candace beamed at me. “Lover boy’s picked somebody else out! He’s on his second table dance already. I think I’m in the clear. You’re very sweet, Jack.”
I had told her my name was Jack.
Then she gave me a kiss.
Long and kind of real.
After that, she gave me a more legit V.I.P. room treatment for the rest of the song (“Hit Me with Your Best Shot”), and then led me back into the strip club. I tried to give her a twenty but I swear (unbelievable, but it happened) she wouldn’t take it.
I probably could have bought a legit table dance from her at that point, but I’d had all I could take. I went and sat in the rear of the smoky, mirrored room, focused on fake tits and disco lights until my erection went down, then wandered back into the middle bar. No more beer for me. I asked for and got a Diet Coke.
It was almost one, and I had a game to play.
Chapter Seven
About the same square footage as the strip club’s V.I.P. lounge, the private poker room was tucked behind the Lucky Devil’s main bar, though with no access from there. And of course the way in from the casino was guarded by one of those ubiquitous bouncers on boxes.
You’ve heard of wall-to-wall carpeting—well, this room had carpeting on the walls, plush, cream-color stuff, much thicker than the more normal-pile (but same color) carpet on the floor. Matching built-in couches ran along all the walls except the one adjacent the parking lot, which had an exit-only door and, more prominently, a big black padded Naugahyde wet bar with black shelving heavy with booze on one side and a stereo set-up on the other. A busty little platinum blonde in the standard Lucky Devil black spandex minidress was tending bar (and the stereo); right now she was filling bowls with chips and pretzels and such, her big brown eyes having no more expression than her raccoon mascara.
The decor was less eccentric than practical—sound-proofing was the order of the day, or night anyway, and the low-slung ceiling tile was part of how this chamber could be so quiet in the thick of a club where each room was noisier than the last. The track lighting was subdued, but the big hexagonal table was the target of a Tiffany-style hanging lamp. Though the billiard feltwas new, the table appeared old, its maple handrails showing wear, and the chip wells and drink-holders (despite fresh cork) had the look of a craftsman who’d operated long ago.
I was the first player to arrive, other than my host, a tall, slender guy in a lightweight white suit over a gray shirt and skinny white tie, very hip and New Wave, only his well-oiled Frankie-Avalon-circa-1958 pompadour undercut it. His hands were free of rings, but that was because he’d removed them before starting to shuffle, putting them in his drink well—gold rings encrusted with just a few fewer precious gems than the Maltese Falcon.
Jerry Giovanni, suspiciously tan for a Midwesterner—Florida trips, maybe, or tanning bed access—was almost handsome, a slightly horsier-looking John Travolta.
Pausing in his shuffling,
Similar Books
