by Nella Tyler
I accessed Savannah's message, which had been left after I had returned home and fallen asleep in my own bed. How'd it go?
I didn't feel like talking, so I just texted her back a quick message. Went fine. I'll tell you about it tomorrow. You have the evening shift with me, don't you?
In moments, she texted back with a smiley face. Yes! Can't wait to hear all the juicy details! You're so lucky!
I wasn't so sure about that. After all, I just didn't trust men anymore, not even Ben. I couldn’t help it. I didn't know if such an attitude was normal or healthy, but I couldn't help how I felt. I was sure that every guy I dated would end up breaking my heart. Besides, what did I have to offer someone like Ben? I was probably just a plaything, a distraction. He might've asked me out just because all his other women friends or hookups were busy doing something else.
It wasn't like I didn't have any self-esteem. I did. But I was a realist. My body was okay, my face was okay, but seriously, I didn't have anything to offer a relationship with someone like Ben. I wasn't being self-deprecating, but I didn't have a college education. I was a Blackjack dealer, for crying out loud. I worked for minimum wage. I drove an old car, lived in one of the cheapest yet safest apartment complexes I could find, and that was my life.
I didn't hobnob in his circles. I didn't have spare time to while away my time. In fact, yesterday afternoon and evening was the first time in I can't remember how many months that I had just bummed around.
Even though I had a great afternoon and evening, and albeit the slightly hazy time with Ben after those drinks in the Jacuzzi, I still couldn't trust him completely. No, I hadn't woken up in bed bruised, tied up, or anything like that, but at the same time, I had been drunk. I didn't know if he had been, but if he had known that I was drunk, should he have done whatever we had done together? I wasn't sure about that. I certainly didn't feel comfortable about losing control the way I had, either. I didn't think I could ever lose control like that, and I certainly didn't want a repeat performance.
After all, I was more than a body. While I had been reluctant to share too many facts about my background, I had told him about my ugly divorce, the fact that my ex-husband had cheated on me, and that; quite truthfully, I was suspicious and wary of any man, including him. He knew that. So it wasn’t like I was leading him on or anything.
I didn't respond to any of the messages Ben had left me because I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to say. I didn't call him, either, because I didn't want to seem too forward. He had sent me a couple of text messages: one to make sure I had gotten home okay; the other to tell me that he had had a great time. Nothing more, nothing less.
After a couple of pieces of toast and two cups of coffee I began to feel more alive. I decided to give Savannah a call. She answered on the first ring.
"Spill!" she squealed.
So, I spent the next fifteen minutes or so telling her everything…well, mostly everything that Ben and I had done yesterday. Of course, I didn't tell her that I was suspicious that perhaps, just perhaps, he counted cards, but I did tell her that I didn't think I would be seeing him again.
"But why not?" she asked, dismayed.
I told her the same things that I had been thinking myself. What kind of a lopsided relationship would it be? What did I have to offer Ben beside my body?
"So, what's the matter with just sex?" Savannah wanted to know. "It doesn't have to mean anything, you know, Maggie. Why don’t you just loosen up and have some fun once in a while? You've earned it. You work your ass off. You should allow a guy to pamper you a little bit. My God, those chocolates were fantastic. The wine was exquisite. Don't tell me you didn't enjoy having him wine and dine you, or making out in a Jacuzzi in a fancy mansion."
"I did enjoy it, or at least, I think I did," I admitted. I could only be honest with myself. "I'm just not sure I want to repeat it. I'm comfortable with my life right now, and yes I do work hard and I don't get enough breaks, but I'm not a gold digger, either."
"That's neither here nor there," she scoffed. "The truth is you've got a guy who's attracted to you. He's not asking you to marry him, Maggie. He just wants to hang out with you, spend some money, and enjoy himself. Have some mind-blowing sex! What's the big deal?"
What was the big deal, I thought. The big deal was that I wasn't that kind of a person. I wasn't looking for just a good time. If I got involved with a guy, and that was doubtful based on my history, I wanted it to be more than just about sex or about what he could give me. If I ever, ever got into another relationship, I wanted to feel as if I were a partner, a true partner. I could never compete with Ben, not financially, not in style, not in material belongings. I was intelligent enough, but again, it all came down to the fact that we lived in different worlds and traveled in different circles.
I worked a minimum wage job and he blew through money like it grew on trees. What did we have in common? I had to think about that, and I said as much to Savannah. She didn't agree with me, but I was sticking to my guns. With a sigh of disappointment, she told me that she was going shopping and asked if I wanted to come along. I told her I'd rather just hang out and relax at my apartment, as my head was still killing me and I still wasn't feeling that well.
I spent the rest of the afternoon just lounging around, nursing my headache, feeding my upset stomach a bit at a time, and watching TV. I did some good old-fashioned channel- surfing and ended up dozing once in a while. By the time evening rolled around, I was feeling a lot better. I was nervous about going back to work tomorrow. I had the noon shift, so I would probably get off around eight or nine o'clock tomorrow evening. I wondered if I would be gone by the time Ben showed up. As far as I knew, he didn't know my hours this week. He usually showed up closer to midnight. I wasn't quite sure why, but I wouldn't mind not seeing him for a day or two.
It wasn't as if I really regretted what I had done, although deep inside I think I did, but because I had no idea what I would say to him. Thanks for the lay? Thanks for the sex? Thanks for getting me drunk? Seriously! What the hell was I going to say to him, especially when I couldn’t remember what we had done after we’d left the Jacuzzi!
*
By the time I started my shift the following day I was feeling much better. Because I was working the afternoon shift today, which I had taken from one of the other girls who was on a brief vacation, I felt more relaxed, knowing that I probably wouldn't bump into Ben. If I did, it would be close to the end of my shift. To my surprise, he strolled into the casino around six o'clock that evening, a good two hours before my shift ended. How did he know I would be working? Or did he? Maybe he was just coming into play… No, he paused inside the door, briefly glanced around, saw me at my table, and headed right over.
He wore a grin on his face, and I nodded in greeting as he sat down. I felt the heat of a blush travel into my cheeks as he flashed a smile. Damn those white teeth of his. He made small talk with the other players at the table, but it wasn’t really busy right now. I was kind of glad, although I would receive fewer tips. By the time I got off shift at around eight-thirty, I thought he would probably stick around like he usually did.
To my surprise, after I transferred the table to the next dealer at the end of my shift, he gathered his chips, cashed out, and was waiting at the front door by the time I prepared to leave. I didn't really want to talk to him, but he followed me out.
"You okay, Maggie?"
I glanced at him over my shoulder, acting as if I were in a hurry to get to my car. "Sure, why wouldn't I be?" He tried to reach for my hand, but I acted like I was shifting my purse from one hand to the other, halting his movement. He had a look on his face that I couldn't quite define. I should probably get this over and done with once and for all.
"Maggie-"
I turned and paused. "Ben, I had a good time with you, really I did, but to be honest, I don't think I want to-"
"I was surprised that you left without waking me up," he interrupted.
I thoug
ht fast. "You were sleeping so soundly that I didn't want to wake you. I'm sorry, but…" I shrugged, not wanting to sound lame. "Look, Ben, like I said, I had a nice time. Some of it's kind of fuzzy, I have to admit, but I think I should let you know that I'm really not interested in a relationship, at least, not at this point in my life." He looked rather disappointed, but it could be that I was misinterpreting his expression.
"We did agree on no strings, didn't we?" he asked.
"Yes but-"
"So what's the matter with just having some fun? Hanging out a little? The sex was great, don't you think?"
I felt another heat of a blush travel up into my cheeks. I couldn't lie about that. I smiled. "The sex was great, Ben, but I'm just not comfortable with…well, I've never been the kind of girl that just goes out with a guy for sex."
He said nothing, but continued to stare at me, as if analyzing what I had said. For some reason, I felt compelled to fill the silence. "Ben, I told you what happened with my ex-husband, right?"
He nodded. "Not all men are like that, Maggie," he finally said. "Are you going to tell me that you plan on staying single for the rest of your life? You're what, in your early twenties? That's an awful long time to spend all by yourself, isn’t it?"
It did sound rather silly once he put it into words. "I'm just not ready-"
"No strings, Maggie, remember?"
I sighed. Trying to get him to understand was difficult. I don't know whether he was trying to be deliberately obtuse or if I just wasn't making myself clear. "Like I said Ben, I had a nice time, and I thank you for it. But you should know that I'm not looking for anything – not a relationship, not even a few one-night stands. Not to mention that it would be a very difficult for me to continue being your regular dealer if I was going out with you.” I paused. “And to be honest, if I had to choose between you and being a dealer, at this time in my life, I have to choose my job. If the pit bosses or anybody had an inkling that we had gone out last night, I could lose my job. You know that, don't you?"
He didn't say anything and I continued, "I think it's just better if we didn't go out again, okay? It's nothing personal. I'm just not ready, and to be honest, Ben, I need my job."
Again, he was silent, but finally, he shrugged. "I understand, Maggie, no big deal. Don't worry about it. No hard feelings."
With that, he turned and walked away.
Chapter 6
The minute, no, the very second that Ben turned and began to walk away, I regretted my words. Then, after another second or two of thought, I told myself I had done the right thing. Hadn't I? It was true, I didn't want a relationship, with anybody, but damn, Ben was so handsome, charming, and rich. He could give a girl anything she desired. In exchange for a good time, and without demanding a relationship at that, I bet he would give me just about everything I asked for.
But I wasn't that kind of a girl. I wasn't a prostitute. I was a Blackjack dealer. I wasn't a mistress, I wasn't a kept woman, and I certainly wasn't a gold digger. Call me stupid, but that's just the way it was. Even taking advantage of his charm and his money for a little while was wrong in my book. If I didn't have feelings for a guy, I had no business going out with him.
As I walked to my car, I thought about that. Did I have feelings for Ben? I think I did, a little. We’d had fun, but it had been one casual lunch date that, thanks to the wine, had turned into a night of mind-blowing sex, or at least, what I could remember of it. Other than that, I didn't know much about him other than what we had talked about at the restaurant. We didn't have a history. We hadn’t made plans to date on a regular basis, or even hinted at any such thing. As far as I knew, Ben could've had a wife somewhere, kids, whatever.
Sighing with disappointment over the way my life kept turning out, I made my way to my car. Nothing was easy anymore. Up until the point when I got married, I had looked at life through rose-colored glasses. I had been naïve, yes, but I had also been in love and full of trust. I wondered if I would ever be able to trust anyone ever again. I hoped so because I knew that this wasn't a good way to live. At the same time, I had to guard my heart. It'd taken me months to recover from the initial shock of what my husband had done to me. It'd taken months after that to get through the anger, and then the grief.
Ending a relationship, whether you were the one that did it or someone else, was like losing a loved one to death. I had to go through a grieving process, just like a spouse went through the grieving process at the death of a loved one. It was all relative, wasn't it? The degree to which people felt pain, distrust, misery, or felt sorry for themselves – we were all different and we reacted to the end of a relationship differently.
When I thought about Savannah, I knew that she was someone who bounced back easier than I ever would. She had endured a few bad relationships but she still put herself out there, hoped for her Prince Charming to come along someday. She took what she could get when she could get it and then when her relationships ended, she shrugged it off and moved on.
I couldn't do that. My heart still hurt. It had hurt since I had discovered my husband in bed that day. It might have been over two years ago now, but when I thought about it, it still felt like yesterday. The plain, blunt truth of the matter was that I knew Ben was a player – or at least, it seemed that way. While I hadn't exactly seen him flirting or coming onto any of the other dealers on my shift, I didn't know what he did during the rest of his days. I only saw him for a few hours every night. He seemed to like me, and I appreciated that. It boosted my confidence and my self-esteem that I was still able to attract someone from the opposite sex.
But that didn't mean I had to go falling for him, did it?
*
I didn't see Ben for the remainder of the week. I wasn't quite sure how that made me feel. As my head cleared after our night of decadent drinking and sex, I did begin to remember more bits and pieces of what had happened. Every image that flashed in my mind either made me gasp in dismay or shock at myself and my behavior, but I also experienced a sense of thrilled pride that I had been able to match Ben in regard to sexual charisma and energy. I began to better appreciate the short time we had spent together as a brief interlude in my otherwise boring life, but nothing more than that. He had been nice, he was more than handsome, and he was great at sex, but other than that, I didn't know anything about him.
The thought that he might – just maybe – be counting cards pretty much got pushed to the back of my mind. Maybe he was just lucky. Maybe he was just really good at Blackjack. People who played Blackjack their whole lives were very good at it, they won often, and it didn't mean that they were cheaters.
As the days passed, however, and I didn't hear a thing from him, not even a text message to ask me how I was doing, I began to waffle between concern and annoyance. I had pretty much put an end to our sleeping together, but I hadn't put an end to our casual friendship, had I? Just because we couldn't sleep together anymore didn't mean that he couldn't come into the casino, so why hadn't he? I did appreciate the fact that he wasn’t making the breakup, if that's what it could be called, difficult on me, but at the same time, I was curious why he didn't come back to the casino at all.
"You're a million miles away, girlfriend."
I started, and then looking in the mirror over the bathroom sink at the casino, I saw Savannah standing slightly behind me, a grin on her face. "Hi, Savannah… Sorry, I guess I was daydreaming."
"I guess you were. And I can imagine about who, can't I?"
I turned around and faced her. "Here's the thing, Savannah,” I blurted. “While I told Ben that I didn't want to sleep with him again, I certainly didn't mean to imply that we weren't friends or that he couldn't come into the casino and sit at my table like he used to."
Savannah shook her head and smiled. "Honey, as far as Ben is concerned, you blew him off completely."
I frowned. "I'm not too sure about that," I said. I glanced around the ladies’ room, made sure nobody was inside, and then asked her to
do a favor for me. "Would you ask around, maybe at the other casinos or something… See if he's still in town, or if he's okay?"
She grinned. "Sure I will. It might be fun to play detective for a little while, and besides, I certainly wouldn't mind catching that guy."
I thanked Savannah and then walked out of the ladies’ room, heading for my table. Shift change. While I couldn't understand exactly why Ben would think that my not wanting to sleep with him made him think I didn’t want to see him at all, at the very back of my mind, I wondered if he had gotten kicked out of the casino. After all, the pit bosses and the managers were very strict about potential cheaters.
If I wondered if Ben had indeed been caught counting cards. Maybe one of the other dealers who had dealt for him or cashed him in had passed along the word to watch out for it. Even worse, maybe one of the bosses or employees at the casino had seen me out on my date with Ben. That was severely discouraged and might risk my being fired. So either it was my fault that he wasn't showing up, or perhaps management had caught on to him cheating, or are they just didn't want a constant winner draining their coffers. Either way, Ben didn't have a lot working in his favor at the moment, and that scared me.
So imagine my surprise when I got to my table and moments later, glanced up to find Ben striding toward it, a grin on his face. He acted like nothing was wrong between us or between him and casino. I felt relieved. He just played, won a few, lost a few, chatted with the other players, and acted like normal. He didn't have a drink by his side tonight, and I wondered about that for a minute, but then decided that I was being way too curious about what he did and with whom he did it. At any rate, I was relieved to see him, glad that he wasn't in trouble, and that he hadn't felt that I had rebuffed his friendship.
