*Ting*
The plane’s intercom beep rattled me awake.
“Flight crew, please prepare for departure.”
I couldn’t believe I was almost there. At that point, I’d been in the air for a while. The last eight weeks had been a blur of 12-15 hour work days that consisted of nothing but watching people play poker.
It was unrewarding, tedious, and at times, really, really fucking boring. But that was all over now, the World Series of Poker was finally over. I stood up before the captain turned off the seatbelt sign and grabbed my bag.
I couldn’t wait to get off.
*Ting*
“Thank you for choosing Delta and welcome to Las Vegas.”
Yeah, I was back.
I had just left Las Vegas less than a week ago, but I couldn’t stay away. I couldn’t stay away from the city lights, the casinos, the lack of a “last call” and delicious buffets.
But most of all, I couldn’t stay away from her.
And it was all because of that one night in the Champagne Bar
Sarah and I managed to leave the bar that night without touching lips.
“I’m not going to kiss you at this shady bar in front of a bunch of bikers,” I think her exact words were.
When we decided to call it a night, Sarah agreed to drop me off.
She had only drank a few beers and was fairly sober. She was driving by the way. I, on the other hand, was several beers in and was far from being legally allowed to do anything.
When Sarah pulled up to my driveway I proposed our wager once again.
“No bikers here,” I said.
“You just don’t give up do you?”
“Well just look at yourself. Can you blame me?”
I knew that would hit the spot.
“Oh Alex, you’re trouble,” Sarah said. She turned to me and ran her hand through my hair. “You should just go to bed.”
“Alright,” I said. “Just give me 10 seconds.”
I leaned into Sarah and kissed her neck.
“Alex, no,” she said, but she tilted her head back, opening up a highway of neck.
I sped through it and worked my way up to her cheek. She closed her eyes and her breathing got heavy.
“I can’t,” she barely made out. At this point, the only person she was trying to convince was herself.
She failed.
Right as I was about to reach her lips, Sarah pulled back and gave me a cat-like stare. A sexy cat-like stare.
Then she pounced.
She grabbed my face and punched it with her lips. Weeks of sexual tension exploded all over her white, two-door Ford. There were hands, moans and bits of saliva everywhere.It was hot, sloppy and animalistic.
It was really hot actually, too hot.
The AC had been off for a while and Vegas heat is quite the bitch in the summer.
“Let’s go inside,” I whispered.
Sarah sat back in her chair and panted for several seconds before she finally spoke.
“No, what about your roommates.”
“Nobody’s home,” I instantly lied. I was living with five other people and I knew for a fact that all of them were home.
“Alex your kitchen light’s on,” Sarah said. “I can see someone moving.”
Shit.
“We’ll just be quiet then,” I said.
“That’s no fun, I like being loud.”
I recoiled in shock, her response was sexier than anything my impaired mind was expecting.
Sarah looked in the rear-view mirror and casually fixed her hair.
“I should probably leave anyways. My boyfriend’s going to get worried,” she said. “And you! You should go to bed mister.”
“But what if I don’t want to,” I said as I leaned for another kiss.
“No,” Sarah said. She put a finger on my lips and pushed my face back. “Be patient.”
Damnit.
“Fine.”
The only thing harder than stepping out of that car without kissing her again was…well…my penis.
“Yeah, and you better have my $100,” she said as I got out of the car.
“What do you mean? That wasn’t even close to 10 seconds.”
“What!? No way! You know it was.”
“Well I told you to time it on your phone,” I said as I went up to her window. “Doesn’t count anymore. We’ll just have to try again tomorrow.”
“You’re such a cheater.”
Sarah smiled at me and I gave her a quick kiss. She kept her eyes closed for a bit before she turned her car back on.
“See, that was under 10 seconds,” she laughed.
I could still see her smiling when she pulled out of the driveway. I watched the white Ford vanish into the desert and then I stumbled back into the house.
It was indeed full.
Aside from the regular crowd, there was a four-handed poker game going on in the game room. They asked me to sit down.
I took up their offer and lost whatever cash I had leftover from the bar. I didn’t care though, I had just got out of losing $100.
The next couple of days with Sarah were a well-coordinated back-and-forth tease. If I saw her standing around I’d grab her hip and brush up behind her. If I was sitting down, she’d take a seat next to me and rub my thigh.
We’d whisper dirty things to each other in the hallways and arrange small 5-minute trysts in strip clubs, concerts and dive bars across Las Vegas. We didn’t manage to match our schedules with an empty bedroom until the WSOP was over.
The November 9 had been set and my house was starting to clear out. A few people had gone home and the rest of my housemates were at the first annual “Let’s Get Shit-Faced at the Gold Coast” media party.
It’s a truly classy event.
The Gold Coast is unlike any other casino in Las Vegas. It lives in the shadow of the two Palms Towers and is within puking distance of the Rio.
You’ll know you’ve reached it when you see a painfully bright 50-foot red and gold sign that reads “Gold Coast.”
Under it, they advertise their big winners, fire bets and $5 craps tables. They also display their daily specials. On Tuesdays you get 2X slot points, and some days you can get a hot dog for $1.25.
On the outside it looks like a tropical white ranch designed for a Colombian drug lord. On the inside, it looks like degeneracy.
But the first thing you’ll notice when you walk into this Vegas gem is the smell. It’s a mixture of mustiness and decades of tobacco-soaked carpets. Their delicious, award-winning chinese restaurant, Ping Pang Pong, adds a hint of duck and noodles into the mix. All these smells are blended together and shot straight up your nasal cavities via the casino’s industrial-sized air conditioner.
I find comfort in the Gold Coast’s scent, but I’ve often heard it described as, “gross.”
The casino itself is populated by a never-ending sea of Asians in the final quarter of their lives.
They bounce around the large, orange-hued gambling hall, splitting their paychecks in between Pai Gow, Baccarat and Asia Poker.
When they go broke, the casino might comp them the $7.99 lunch buffet and give them tickets to the San Fernando Band or Noches Calientes With Latin Breeze. It’s a small token of gratitude in exchange for the larger part of their Social Security check.
Right past the casino, there’s a set of escalators that take you to the Gold Coast’s 70-lane bowling alley.
Here – after midnight – you can enjoy a game of bowling for a single dollar. For the same price, they’ll give you a domestic draft.
The clientele here tends to be younger, blacker and more hispanic than those on the ground floor.
It’s Vegas without the glitz and glamour. There’s no ‘beautiful busty waitress’ tax or table minimums. It’s gambling and alcoholism stripped to the bone for locals, alcoholics and degenerates.
Also, there’s bowling.
Naturally, this is where the poker media spends their last night in Las Vegas.
Sarah was going to the party with her boyfriend, but had agreed to pick me up beforehand.
By herself.
She told him that, despite my several roommates, I needed a ride to the party and she would have to stay at my house for about an hour.
And what an insightful hour that was.
I fully understood – along with some lucky pedestrians – what she meant by “being loud.” I remembered why 26 is such a fantastic sexual age for women. And finally, I learned that I will never buy black silk sheets for my own bed.
When we finally arrived at the Gold Coast bowling alley, the only thing that remained splattered on Sarah’s face was a beaming grin.
Seeing her smile made me happy, it always did.
We walked close together, bumping shoulders every couple of seconds. Our bodies were begging us to hold hands, but our minds knew better.
In Vegas, someone’s always watching.
As we walked into the bowling alley a tall guy in shorts and baseball cap stood up.
“Hey babe,” he said in our direction.
I had a sneaking suspicion I wasn’t the “babe” he was referring to, but this is Las Vegas and the amount I drink is often described as “a problem.”
Anything was possible.
I kept my distance and prepared a line to graciously decline my admirer’s advance. But my doubts were confirmed when he kissed Sarah on the cheek.
“What took you so long?” he asked.
“Traffic, you know how Flamingo can get,” said Sarah. “This is Alex by the way.”
“How’s it going,” I said as I extended my hand.
He had no idea it had just thoroughly explored every crevice of his girlfriend.
I should’ve felt bad, but then again, he shouldn’t have cheated on her first. Also, he probably should’ve fucked her more than once every six weeks.
Sarah had necessities, and who was I to deny a friend in need.
After about a minute of small talk that I desperately wanted to end, Sarah went to go sit down with her boyfriend and work friends.
I, on the other hand, went to the bar to do what I do most.
“Vodka tonic and a Corona please,” I asked the bartender.
I turned around as I waited for my drinks and saw Sarah staring right back at me. There was about 20 feet and a half-a-dozen people between us, but it felt like she was right on me.
She was a wild cat, ready to pounce.
I smirked back, wondering how long it would take her to bite.
Sarah loved to bite.
My body was living, breathing, bruised proof of that.
I liked it.
The bartender gave me my drinks and I went to go bowl, turning my back on the wild animal. It was a risky move, but I knew what I was doing.
I bowled and drank until the former became impossible. When every roll ends in a gutterball, it’s no longer bowling, it’s pathetic. While the bowling stopped, the drinking continued.
A small group of us moved the party down to the craps table, or what was now dubbed by the poker media, “Give Otis Money.”
Otis was in the crowd and he did indeed win money, we all did. I kept betting 3 points at a time with 3X odds. I pressed my bets on the 6 and 8 and threw a few dollars on the “Yo” when I was feeling frisky.
My hands touched nothing but chips and dice until I felt a buzz in my pocket. It was my phone alarm, 2am.
My flight was leaving in 90 minutes.
I stayed for one more point and then said goodbye to my summer family. Otis cupped his hands together and gave me a final farewell owl call as I walked back up to the bowling alley.
I knew Sarah would be there.
I walked into the bar and things were just as I had left them, except drunker.
Sarah locked her eyes on me the second I walked in, her boyfriend was notably absent. She tracked me as I said my goodbyes to everyone in the room.
I left her for last.
“I’ll take you,” she said when I finally reached her. I wasn’t able to get the first word in.
“What about your boyfriend?”
“He’s gone, he works tomorrow.”
I smiled and we made our way to the parking lot. Sarah was visibly drunk, but determined.
“Call the airline, we’re changing your flight,” she said.
I did as she commanded. Partly because it was a great idea, but mostly out of fear.
Sarah was on a mission and no one was getting in her way.
We got the airline on the phone and after a lot of confusion, confirmation numbers and “please holds,” we realized I had made a fantastic mistake.
My flight was scheduled to leave at 3:30pm, not am.
My lack of attention to detail had never benefitted me so much.
Sarah smiled, grabbed my hand and put her foot on the gas. We drunkenly sped through Maryland Parkway. The dive bars blurred together and pedestrians meshed into a beatup, toothless picket fence.
The closer we got, the harder Sarah squeezed my hand.
We sprinted into the guest house when Sarah shut off her car. The Ford had done its job, now it was time to do ours.
We didn’t make it 5 feet into the guest house before we tore into each other. We left a mound of Gold Coast scented clothes at the foot of the door and landed on a couch just inches from the entrance.
We tried to make our way to the bedroom in a form of sexual leapfrog. We left the couch when I bent Sarah over the coffee table, we forgot about the coffee table when Sarah turned around and pushed me into a wall. The wall was switched for a corner after I picked Sarah up and we landed next to the stairs.
We slowly but surely – and orally – made our way to the top.
It felt like no corner of the one bedroom, two-floor guest house was left unscathed by the sweaty, singular pile of flesh Sarah and I formed that night.
After it was all said and done – mostly done – we found ourselves lying on the couch we started on.
The pile of flesh had split and all that was left were two naked bodies on a leather couch.
I took another mental note.
Leather couches aren’t comfortable in the nude.
I looked down at Sarah, her head was resting on my chest and she was rubbing her hand up and down my stomach. I admired her body through the faint light peeking through the window.
Sarah noticed it too, the sun was was starting to rise.
“Oh shit, what time is it?” She asked. I shrugged, I had forgotten what time was.
Sarah jumped off my body and started putting her clothes back on.
“Do you really have to leave?” I asked.
“Yes,” Sarah said as she scavenged through the heap of clothes. “It’s SO late, I didn’t even notice.”
She strapped on her bra, hiding away the perky twins. I didn’t even get a chance to kiss them goodbye.
I slid into a pair of pants and I watched Sarah prepare for departure. Clothing? Check. Phone? Check. Purse? Check.
All systems go.
I opened the door and cleared the runway.
“Bye,” I smiled at Sarah as she walked out of the rumpus room.
But something was wrong, Sarah didn’t smile back. She walked up to me with her head tilted down.
Before I could ask her what was wrong, she threw her arms around me and squeezed.
Hard.
It wasn’t a normal hug and there was nothing sexual about it. Despite everything we’d been through, I never felt closer to Sarah than at that moment.
Her face was pressed hard into my shoulder and she didn’t say a word.
She didn’t have to.
I’m going to miss you. I don’t want you to leave. Stay here. Stay with me. Be with me.
She said it with her body and screamed it with her eyes.
I was caught off guard. I expected Sarah to smile and skip back to her car, blowing me a kiss as she left. I was going to go back to Connecticut, brag to my friends about her and move on. I didn’t expect to see her until at least the next WSOP, if ever again.
But not anymore.
When Sarah finally let go, she rushed off to her car and sped away. I, on the other hand, didn’t move a muscle. I was stalled at the runway, blindsided by what just happened, by what I was feeling.
I remembered what time was and it felt like any amount of it without her was too much.
I went back to into the house and washed the shock off my face in the bathroom. I looked up at the familiar face in the mirror and wondered what he was going to do.
You’re going to see her again, as soon as you can.