Love Deluxe (14 page)

“Exactly what are they gonna do to me? I’m not good with pain, and I’m not liking the idea of the area they’re gonna be working on.”

“You’ll do fine, it’s a thirty minute appointment right there in the doctor’s office, how bad can it be? I’ll hold your hand if you want, in fact I’ll hold anything you like, and they’ll give you a prescription for painkillers, not that you’ll even need them. You can do it, buddy.”

He turned toward me, “So you’ll hold my cock while he does it?”

“I hate that word, but yes I will. You’re not afraid to let me?”

“I’m never afraid to let you let handle it, you always take good care of me.” His eyes darkened and he kissed me for a long time and then asked, “When will you be better, how long ‘til I can love my wife the way I need to?”

“Two weeks, but don’t worry I’ll make sure you don’t suffer, buddy,” I said, licking my lips so that he groaned and shifted in his seat. “Think how hot the sex is gonna be with all that glorious heat and sand, we can swim naked in the Gulf and do nasty things that will scare the fish. We can get down and dirty in a hammock or throw a blanket on the beach and pretend we’re napping if anyone walks by.”

***

At home John called a friend to ask if he would care for Turkey while we were away, he said sure, bring him on over.

“He has a house full of birds; it will be a nice little getaway for Turkey.”

When he went to the bird cage the parrot was lying on the bottom, cold and stiff. John was beside himself, he’d had Turkey for thirteen years.

“Fuck, what could have happened to poor Turkey?”

“Oh buddy, I’m sorry,” I said.

I went upstairs to get a towel to wrap the little body and the phone rang, John answered it and I could hear him almost shouting, “She can’t come to the phone right now, my bird is dead. What? Oh my God, she’ll have to call you back!” He was still holding the phone and giving me an icy stare as I handed him the towel. “You killed my bird?”

“What? What on Earth are you talking about, who was that?”

“That was Linda, she said you hit a bird with your car and killed it!”

“For God’s sake, John. I hit a sparrow leaving her office the other day; she obviously put two and two together and came up with five. Do you honestly think I was out to get poor old Turkey?”

He seemed relieved but he still looked like he’d lost his best friend. The coincidence was pretty funny though and I put my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing.

“Hey, she sounded like she knew what she was talking about,” he said as he wrapped the bird in the towel. “I’m sorry, but man, that was a weird call at the wrong time!”

“Come on, buddy,” I led him to the garden shed and found a shovel. “Turkey deserves a proper burial.”

PART TWO

Seaside, Florida

Chapter Ten

Driving through Louisiana, the week’s trials were becoming distant memories with every mile we put behind us. We reached the Atchafalaya Swamp Basin with its thirty mile bridge and huge sign proclaiming its presence.

John sounded it out, “Atch a fa lay a.” I giggled and he gave me a mock stern look and asked “What’s so funny?”

“I pronounced it that way once when I was little kid driving across the state with my daddy, big mistake! He’s a Southerner one hundred and fifty percent and he believes in knowing how to speak Southern or in this case Cajun. He very calmly said, “Gal, its pronounced sha-fuh-lie.” I never go over this swamp without remembering that, I don’t know why, I’m a Daddy’s girl, always have been.”

“Your dad is the man; he’s like a cross between John Wayne and Andy Griffith as Sherriff Taylor. A dad like that, guess I never thought there was such a thing. I could have been somebody if I’d had a dad like him.”

His father wasn’t even in the league of decent dads, but I didn’t want to say that. I knew he’d been to Austin and had some problem with his father earlier in the week but he wouldn’t elaborate.

“How much longer to New Orleans?” he asked.

I was driving, mainly because I wanted to arrive in the right city and also because he felt the need to partially recline his seat to take the pressure off his stitches.

Just thinking about the trip to the urologist sent me into a fit of laughter. He knew very well why I was laughing; he acted hurt and called me a Meany! In the conference room at the doctor’s office he signed papers and was given the specifics as to the difficulty of having a vasectomy reversed. John’s huge hands rested on the polished table and when he lifted them they left two puddles of water.

“Well, I see you’re rather nervous,” the doctor said. “Let me assure you it’s quite a simple operation, thirty minutes tops. You’ll be given a local anesthetic and two tiny incisions will be made in the scrotum, which will be shaved, my nurse will do the shaving, of course. I’ll locate the vas deferens, snip away a section, cauterize the ends and close with a few sutures. You’re young and healthy; you’ll walk right out with a smile on your face.”

John had said maybe he’d better give it a little more thought, maybe come back tomorrow. The doctor started to tell him that was fine when I gave him a desperate look across the table. With that he asked John to step into an examination room and let him have a look at what he had to work with. John followed him down the hall and into the exam room; a nurse stepped in behind them and the door closed with a certain finality.

The three of them emerged thirty minutes later, John looked paler than I thought possible.

“Hey buddy, looks like you survived, how ya feeling?”

In a high, prepubescent voice he squeaked, “Fine, but I think my voice changed.”

In the car he popped two Vicodin and tried to get comfortable. As I drove he recounted his horror story, how the doctor jabbed him with needles before he even knew what was happening.

“Then the nurse said, “Well they’re deadened, I’ll go ahead and shave them,” like it was the most normal thing in the world to stick needles in my balls and then shave them slick as a babies! But that’s not the worst part, doctor what’s-his-name was rooting around down there, thank God I couldn’t really feel it, just some pressure is all. He pulled this vein out with some steel scissor looking thing and it was about a foot long and looked like a chicken vein. I thought for sure I was gonna pass out and he grinned like a lunatic and said “Here’s your problem, will just nip this in the bud!” Then while he was poking around and cutting and burning my flesh he was smiling and talking like it was a day at the park. When he was sewing me up I guess those fucking shots had worn off and I was starting to feel it. I said, “Hey motherfucker, that hurts like a bitch!” and you know what he said… “Hang on, just a couple more stitches, do you watch much football? How ‘bout them Cowboys?”

Poor John, I laughed so hard I nearly peed in my pants.

***

Once we crossed Lake Pontchartrain the yellow casino chips were burning a hole in John’s pocket, so we went straight to
Harrah’s
. I didn’t care; in fact I was ready for some serious fun myself. He poured a frightening number of chips into my purse and told me to go wild.

“What should I play?”

“Craps, Black Jack, slots, play a few hands of Twenty-One first. Just put a few chips on the table and tell them to give you smaller ones, then bet twenty-five dollars a hand until you get the hang of it.”

“Making the decision to hit or stick makes me nervous.”

“Play ten or twelve hands and if you’re losing cash out and try the slot machines, but go to high limit slots, you have better odds with the higher denominations.”

“Damn, I didn’t realize you we’re a pro gambler, I’m gonna call you Ace from now on.”

“Ace, I like that, Ace Foster, gamblin’ man,” he laughed. “If you want to do slots it never hurts to ask an attendant which machine is ready to hit, be charming and say you’ve never played before, sometimes they’ll give you a tip, it doesn’t hurt to try. And remember; if you play, stay away from the rinky-dink machines. The five to twenty-five dollar denominations are best and walk away from any machine that’s not paying.”

I was suddenly nervous, “I think I just to want to go to the hotel, you have fun and I’ll see you later.”

“No! Come on, it’ll be fun don’t think too much, win or lose, it doesn’t matter, have a good time. Look at me.” He kissed me, pressed his forehead against mine, “I won these chips, so they’re lucky, and you have to enjoy it, you can’t win with scared money. You’re gonna have a blast, just say “fuck it” and go wild.”

“I’ll do it, buddy!” I said and out into the casino we went.

John said I could find him at a craps table if I needed him. He’d play awhile then talk to a casino host and have them arrange a hotel room.

“If you need anything, come find me, you don’t need to pay for food or drinks, everything is comped. Change some of the chips for fives to tip for your drinks.” He disappeared into the cavernous casino and I was alone except for the shit-load of chips in my purse. I found a twenty five dollar Black Jack table, perched on a leather stool and laid down five thousand dollar chips. I tried not to act like a novice, but the dealer smiled when I asked him to make the chips smaller. A cocktail server appeared and I ordered a vodka tonic, Grey Goose with a twist of lime. My drink arrived as if by magic, I gave the pretty young woman a five and told her to keep checking on me. I laid down a twenty five dollar chip, the cards were dealt, I asked for too many cards, lost and drank about half my drink at once. I played and drank, played and drank until a new dealer took over, it had been so up and down I had no idea how I’d done. John said to play, so I played. I told the dealer I was done and he said “color out” and changed my chips into yellows again with seven hundreds as well.

“I won?”

“You have fifty-seven hundred there, ma’am.”

“Cool!” I said, excited now and I tipped him a hundred dollars. I gathered the chips, my head buzzing with vodka and my first victory and I strutted to the cashier thingy. With fifty six hundred dollars in hundred dollar bills I headed over to the high limit slot area. I decided the money in my hand was my gambling money and that I wouldn’t touch any of the chips in my purse. I’d drink water for a while, too, it was clear that a drunken gambler could get into trouble; my powers of reason were already slipping away.

I walked around the slot machines and they were dazzling, all lights, color, and sound.  A grey-haired woman impeccably dressed and dripping jewelry was being paid a huge stack of bills while two attendants and a guard stood by. She sat at a hundred dollar machine that said
Ten Times Pay
. A young man in a suit walked over and introduced himself, his name was Nathan and he’d be happy to be my slot host. He suggested I keep the stack of hundreds inside my purse and asked what machines I played.

“I don’t,” I told him, “I don’t care for cards, the tables are crowded and there’s too much thinking involved.”

“Well, you’ve found your niche,” he said. “Here in the high limit room it’s just you and the machine and the machine does all the work.” In his opinion it was the ultimate gaming experience. He motioned for the cocktail server, she handed me a bottle of water and asked my drink preference. “Now,” he said, as we strolled around the smallish area and he pointed out a few of the machines, “These machines pay even money so you can play one credit and win one hundred dollars or play two credits and win two hundred dollars, it’s quite simple. My favorites, and you will find that every slot player has their personal favorites and are extremely loyal to them, is a game with a bonus round.” He stopped in front of a row of tall, flashy machines, “This one is
Pin Ball
and these are
Top Dollar
. There are several ways to accumulate credits but the ultimate is to hit the bonus round, which can only be done by hitting the ‘max bet’ button, meaning you are betting two credits at a time on these particular machines. Also, if you study a machine for a moment before you commit to it you will see that as with these two
Top Dollar
machines one is regular pay on the bonus and one is two times pay. Some people believe the double is harder to hit but when it does, it can also pay two times plus two times, if you get my meaning.”

I must’ve looked completely lost because he walked to a counter and showed me on paper.

“Say the bonus round offers you one hundred dollars, but then it says times two, that’s two hundred dollars, then it says times two again, so that’s four hundred dollars. You see? It doubles the first offer then doubles the doubled amount. And
Top Dollar
will give you a total of four offers one at a time that you can accept or try again, it’s always a gamble as to which offer will be best, very exciting, I think. With
Pinball
you bet the maxium as well and when the bonus comes up you are given fives chances to launch the ball and amass money, the amount depending on where the ball lands.”

My head was spinning with vodka and game rules, but I was itching to hit some buttons and hear some bells ring, Nathan asked for my driver’s license to get me a player’s card.

“You’ll want to use it every time you play to receive the maximum amount of comps,” he said.

I picked a five dollar
Double Top Dollar
machine, sat down and put in two hundred dollar bills, Nathan showed me how to insert what looked like a credit card and a little screen said, “Welcome, Cate Stuart!”

“You’re all set,” he said, “I’ll send the server over and just hit this help button if you need anything, good luck, Ms. Stuart.”

Here we go
, I thought and hit the button, it spun around hitting nothing a few times then rang and ching-ching-chinged ringing up ten credits here, thirty there then a bow tie appeared on the third reel. The machine had a synthesized voice and it proclaimed, “First offer!” I looked up and different dollar bills lit up on the screen totaling two hundred forty dollars, I pressed the ‘try again’ button and with much ado it offered one hundred fifty dollars,
damn
. I had two more offers so I tried again, three hundred twenty five, screw it, I decided and pressed again, “Final offer!” it announced loudly, several bills lit up and the voice crowed, “Five hundred seventy five dollars, boy, you’re a winner!” And by God, I felt like a winner! I barely caught my breath before I hit the button twice and there it was again, the magic bow tie, the sounds, the sparkling lights, it was all so intoxicating. I passed up three good offers to end up with a final offer of forty dollars, not what I’d hoped for. I played for a while and the bow tie almost appeared, but not quite, then two double diamond symbols lined up with three bars, and the clanging sound kept going and the credits keep climbing. When it stopped a light on top of the machine blinked and a bell began to ring, I had no idea what just happened.

Nathan appeared and said, “Well, that’s a nice bonus.”

“What did I win?” I asked.

“That combination is three hundred sixty credits times five dollars so, eighteen hundred. Anything over twelve hundred we hand pay and take the taxes out immediately, it’s the law. So let’s see, you’ve accumulated twenty-three hundred and sixty dollars on this machine, let me jot that down and get your money. The machine will lock down until we pay out, if you like you can wait here, choose another machine or get a refreshment. This machine will be held for you should you choose to continue playing it.”

“Yes, absolutely, hold it for me, please. I’ll just run to the restroom and I would love a Diet Coke.”

I went to the restroom, it was beautifully decorated and for the use of just one person at a time, no community toilets in the high limit room. I tried to unzip my jeans but my hands were shaking, I stepped to the mirror and my face was flushed.
Holy shit
, the slot machines were nearly as much fun as sex, which made me wonder how John was doing. I was euphoric and I’d barely won three thousand dollars since I walked in the casino, I made more than that off the sale of one antique. But it was the pure chance, I suppose, to be surprised, to win big or lose it all, a rush of enormous proportions, heaven help me if I ever won anything big. Back among my new best friends, Nathan and
Top Dollar
, I was ceremoniously paid and the dear server had laid out a tray of cheese, crackers and fruit, as well as my Diet Coke. I handed her a twenty and she thanked me profusely.