Chapter 9

Brian sat despondently at the blackjack table, fingering his chips. The fact that his stacks of reds and greens had grown steadily over the past hour did not cheer up him much.

"Bet please."

Brian placed four red chips on the betting square. The dealer dealt him a hand totaling eighteen. He stood. She busted on a sixteen.

"You win again," she said, and counted out four more red chips for him.

The dealer was a tall, shapely redhead in her early thirties. Her green eyes smoldered with sexual hunger as she stared at Brian, who was the lone player at the table. Brian hardly noticed her, though she was trying hard to be noticed by him. His mind was focused inward on his own problems.

Moving automatically, his hand stacked his winnings on top of his old bet. He now had forty dollars riding. The dealer dealt him thirteen. She had a ten card showing. One part of his brain told him that he had to hit his hand.

"Give me an eight," he sighed, not at all hopeful.

Surprisingly, she gave him an eight. He glanced at it only briefly, however. His eyes had caught a suspicious movement of her hands. He could have sworn he had seen her deal him the bottom card rather than the top one. He looked up into her face for the first time that day, and saw it smiling back at him.

"You play very good blackjack," she said. "You know exactly which cards to ask for."

It occurred to Brian that she was cheating the house to help him win, had perhaps been doing it from the start. But why? He didn't have to ask that question twice. Looking into her eyes gave him the answer. She was obviously attracted to him.

Brian's heart started beating rapidly. He just now noticed what a desirable woman she was.

"I've had some schooling," he stammered, trying to sound suave, but missing by a mile.

Her smile widened. "How nice."

They continued playing. Brian's mind was now awake and focused on the game. He won four out of every five hands, thanks to the dealer's cheating, which she did not bother to hide. He kept his bets down to twenty and thirty dollars, not wanting to appear greedy. He tipped the dealer heavily on every other hand, which she thanked him for. Yet he knew instinctively that money was not what she wanted from him.

"Are you a model?" she suddenly asked after he had cashed in a blackjack.

He was caught off guard by the question. "Uh, no. Why?"

"I was just wondering. You're very handsome. I thought for sure you must be a model."

"Well, I'm not."

"You should go down to an agency. They'll hire you on the spot."

"How do you know?"

"Because I know what they're looking for. I used to be a model."

This captured Brian's interest. "Really."

"Uh-huh."

Brian looked at her more closely. "You know, I thought there was something about you which I recognized. What magazines have you appeared in?"

"Hustler. Club. Chic. Swank."

Brian's face turned red. "Yeah, I guess I have seen you before." And then: "Do you still model?"

"No. If I was I wouldn't be dealing blackjack, would I? I'm too old now. Male readers want to see new faces and bodies. After you appear in all the magazines, as I did, the industry considers you used up."

"Their loss, not yours."

She smiled. "You sure know how to sweet talk a girl, don't you?"

He smiled and shrugged. She dealt the next hand, which he won. She began shuffling the deck.

"What's your name?" he asked.

She pointed to the name tag on her left tit. "It's right here, honey."

"Oh. Janet. Nice to meet you, Janet."

He found that his eyes did not want to leave that name tag.

"-likewise, stranger."

He chuckled. "You can call me Brian. That's my name."

"Do you have a girlfriend, Brian?"

"Uh, yes. Well, no. I just broke up with my girlfriend-sort of."

"So you're sort of with her and sort of without her. I know how it goes with relationships, which is why I try to avoid any deep entanglements. I guess that explains why you've been acting so mopey."

"It's a very complicated situation. I can't even explain it to myself."

Janet, finished shuffling the deck, abruptly set it aside without dealing. Her eyes bored into Brian's. He flinched from their searing, sexual intensity.

"Listen," she said, "I get off work in four hours. If you feel like some company this afternoon, why don't you stop by my trailer home? I live across the river in Bullhead City."

The directness of the proposition caught Brian unprepared. The fact was he was a virgin to the subtle arts of the mating game. He had never had sex with anyone other than Drew. Though he had received plenty of tempting offers before, he had turned them all down. The reason for this was simple: he was frightened of other women, other lovers. They were an unknown commodity to a young man who craved a safe and secure life. He had grown up watching his mother go from man to man and job to job and place to place and never get anywhere. Her beauty and spirit faded with each lover. None of them, not even the father of her children, had stuck around long enough to offer her a stabilizing anchor in the stormy sea of life. Brian had sex with Drew because he was more than just attracted to her, because she was more than just readily available. She represented the only family he had left in this world and he was desperate to hold it together. Sex, to him, acted like the cement. He was afraid of being alone.

Yet now Drew, for whatever reasons she had, wanted to pursue other lovers. Consequently, if Brian wanted sex, he had to do the same thing. He desired Janet very much.

He searched his mind frantically for an appropriate comeback to her proposition, something witty that would show he was not just some pushover sex object but a force to be reckoned with in the world.

"What's your address?" he asked.