by Glenn, Roy
“Hey, how are you doin’, Mystique,” I said once I realized who she was, and more importantly, remembered what her name was.
We talked for a few minutes about the high price of gas and then about the run of nice weather we were having while she pumped her gas. “It has been nice for this time of year,” I commented.
“Oh, I want you to know that I was sorry to hear about your wife.”
“Thank you.” I never know what else to say.
“I never met her, but everybody says she was a special lady,” Mystique said.
“Thank you,” I said again, ‘cause I never know what else to say. “What about you? How you doin’?” I asked to change the subject.
“I’m okay. I’m startin’ to get a little work during the day as a personal trainer. Still dancin’ at Cynt's at night,” Mystique said and I noticed the size of the thighs she had poured into those jeans. “Haven’t seen you there in a while,” she said and returned the pump to its cradle.
“I haven’t been up there in years.”
“You should stop by some time and say hi to me,” Mystique said and got in her car.
“I will,” I promised and watched her drive off before I finished pumping my gas. Three nights later, me and Bobby were at Cynt's.
I lied and told myself that she wasn’t the reason I all of a sudden wanted to go to Cynt's, but she was. Mystique smiled at me when she saw me walking through the room and I pretended not to notice. The whole time I was talking to Cynt and Bobby, I watched her when I knew she wasn’t looking. I just wanted to watch her, watch her move, watch her talking and I thought about my baby. Even though it felt good, after a while, I felt childish and stupid for doing it, so I finally walked over to her.
“I see you finally made it over here to see me,” Mystique said and quickly dismissed the men that surrounded her.
“Yeah,” I said over the music.
“Well, I’m glad you did.” She quickly looped her arm in mine.
“I was gettin’ ready to go, but I wanted to holla at you like I said I would before I left,” I said in her ear.
She looked very disappointed. “Do you have to go?”
“Yeah, got some people I gotta see,” I lied, knowing that I had nobody to see and started moving toward the door. Well, I had promised Pam we’d be back before Michelle woke up screaming bloody murder, which usually happened around one o'clock. I looked at my watch; it was almost midnight.
Mystique kissed me on the cheek. “What was that for?”
“That’s to make you wanna come back when you got more time.” She kissed me on the other cheek and then Mystique went back to work.
I intentionally stayed away from there for the next three weeks, thinking about what I was doing. Thinking about what I was thinking about doing. I wasn’t in love with her or anything like that, but I was interested in her, and the only reason was because of who she reminded me of.
Was that wrong?
I didn’t know, and I convinced myself that I didn’t care. I mean, it wasn’t like I was interested in developing a relationship with her. I just wanted to fuck her.
So I did.
Yes, I used a condom.
And then, she surprised me. When we were getting ready to leave the hotel, I offered her a thousand dollars and she turned me down. “I’m a dancer, Mr. Black, just a dancer. I’m not one of your hoes. I had sex with you ’cause I wanted to, ’cause I wanted you. Not because I knew you’d hit me off when you were done.”
I was impressed, and not just with the fact that she wouldn’t take my money, but with Mystique. Maria Harrow definitely had skills and I wanted to fuck her again, so I did.
Yes, I used a rubber that time too.
Only this time I could tell how wet the pussy was even with the condom on.
And then she did it again.
This time I put the money in her hand, Mystique handed it back to me. She looked hurt that I even offered. I put my arm around her, you know, to console her. She kissed me; I kissed her, next thing you know I’m strapped up again and deep inside her.
After we were done that time, we’re laying there and I said to her, “I like havin’ sex with you.”
She curled up next to me and I put my arm around her. “That’s good, ‘cause I like the way you do it to me. You’ve made me feel things that no man ever has. I should be givin’ you money.”
“Thank you,” I said, ‘cause I never know what else to say. “But there’s one problem.’”
“What’s that?”
I reached next to me and picked up a magnum. “I hate these damn things. I wanna feel all this good pussy,” I said and eased two fingers inside her.
Mystique smiled and rocked her hips on my fingers. “And this good pussy wants to feel all this dick,” she smiled and grabbed a handful of me. So the next day Mystique and I went to see my doctor and two weeks later we were having sex. Not plastic, but sex. Sweat poppin’, pussy drippin’ sex.
It was off the chain.
I had chosen wisely.
Only problem is, I’m startin’ to like her.
And I don’t want to like her.
When we got to Cynt's, I was able to walk up on Mystique at the bar without her noticing me. “Are you busy?” I whispered in her ear.
She turned around quickly and smiled. “Never too busy for you, Mr. Black,” Mystique said and got up off of the stool. “Truth be told, I was hopin’ you would come by tonight. I want to feel you inside me,” she said and pressed her titties against me. Mystique was becoming very hard to resist.
She started out as an occasional convenience, somebody to release some tension with. Pretty soon we were getting together at least once a week. Last week, I fucked her three times and here I am again. “So can I steal you away from here?”
“I’ll get changed,” Mystique said quickly and walked away.
That’s how we were together. We didn’t talk much, a choice on my part, although Mystique does have a tendency to babble incoherently after she’s cum a few times. But the more time we spend fuckin’, the more time we spend talking. The more we talk, the more I realize that she’s not just a Cassandra look a like. Maria Harrow was just cool to be around. She’s someone that seems to genuinely like me, but you never really know with women these days. It ain’t like she don’t know who I am and the kind of money I have. She could see the big picture and be positioning herself for the long haul. But from what I could tell, she’s a nice person, one that I’m starting to like, and I don’t want to like anybody.
Not now.
Chapter Nine
Jackie arrived at the gambling house a little before eleven that night. It was to be her second night playing in the big game. The first night went relatively well for the most part. She hadn’t come away the big winner yet, but she had left there each night with more money than she walked in with.
It wasn’t always like that for Jackie. There was a time when she regularly lost money. That changed the night Mike Black told her about her game. “When you got money sittin’ in front of you, you make reckless bets and when you lose, you try to laugh it off, like it’s only money,” he told her that night, after watching her lose a big pot.
“That’s me,” Jackie laughed, she knew it was true.
“You chase the big pots. Greedy. And you chase them with weak hands and since we already talked about your inability to bluff, that makes you reckless and greedy.”
“Damn,” Jackie said slowly. “You really have been watching me.”
“Watching you lose, Jackie. Watching you lose money to me.” From that moment on, Jackie changed her approach to the game.
That night she was dressed in a red leather jumpsuit that hugged her curves, and made every man and a few of the working women in attendance, stop and take notice. “You lookin’ good tonight there miss lady,” Philbert Cunningham said. He was a divorce lawyer and a regular at the house. Cunningham considered himself a ladies man and had a reputation for seducing many of his female clients. He ha
d been on Jackie since she sat down at the table that first night.
“Thank you, Mr. C,” Jackie said and took a seat next to Earl, the dealer.
“You must think them tight-ass outfits gonna throw me off my game,” Harold Wade said. He and his brother Stanley owned a construction company. They too were regulars, but Harold was there damn near every night, while his brother, who had a wife and children, only came once a week.
“You getting in now or you gonna wait ’til next hand?” Sonny Edwards barked. Since he had been hemorrhaging money since he walked in, he wasn’t in a good mood. Sonny was an older gentlemen; he was retired but refused to say from what.
“I’m in, Sonny. What’s the big blind?” Jackie asked as she organized her chips. The game was Texas Hold ’Em and before the game starts, the two players post blind bets. They're called blinds because they are made before the players see any cards. The blinds ensure that there is some money in the pot to play for as the game starts.
“Ten Grand,” Mr. C told Jackie. He posted the small blind of five thousand dollars, while Sonny put up the ten thousand as the big blind. Jackie put up ten grand to get in and the game began.
As the night wore on, Jackie found herself having a good night. She’d racked in a few big pots and was way ahead that evening. The Flop, a term used for the three 'community' cards that are dealt face up on the table, were the ace of hearts, the eight of spades, the six of spades. The fourth community or turn card, was the ace of spades. Jackie was holding the ace of clubs and the six of hearts and she was feeling good about the two pair of aces she was looking at, and raised the bet by twenty thousand dollars.
Harold Ware played with his chips and stared across the table at Jackie trying to get a feel for whether she was buffing. Then he smiled and called her bet. At that point there was more than two hundred thousand dollars on the table.
The River, the final community card, was dealt. “Ace of spades,” the dealer said.
“Twenty,” Mr. C uttered.
Sonny flipped up his hole cards and took a peek. “I raise thirty.”
“The bet is fifty to you, Jackie,” the dealer said.
Full house, got ’em, Jackie thought and made her bet. “Seventy-five,” she pushed her chips in and waited for the showdown.
“Well now, Jackie, I’ma have to call you on that one,” Harold said and pushed his chips forward.
“Showdown folks,” the dealer said.
Mr. C turned over his cards and pushed them toward the dealer and he arranged the cards with the community cards. “King and queen of spades. A flush,” the dealer said and turned to Sonny.
He smiled a very satisfied smile and flipped over his cards. The dealer racked the two and eight of clubs. “Full House; eights full of aces. To you, Jackie.”
Jackie looked at the four hundred thousand dollars in front of her and was sure that it was hers. Very slowly, Jackie pushed forward her cards. “Ace of clubs, six of hearts. A higher full house.”
All eyes in the room were now on Harold Ware. He pushed his cards face down to the dealer. “Five and seven of spades. A straight flush, four to the eight. Mr. Ware wins.”
Jackie cursed and gathered together what was left of her chips. Jackie backed away from the table and stood up.
“You ain’t leavin’, are you, sweetie,” Harold said to her.
“Not as long as you got all that money sittin’ in front of you. You don’t have to worry. I’ll be back in a minute to take some of it,” Jackie assured him and headed for the bar.
The bartender had a shot of Hennessy waiting for her when she got there. Jackie didn’t like drinking at the table. She thought it was too much of a distraction. It was more important to stay focused. While she sipped her drink, Jackie tried to figure the odds on Harold Ware having a straight flush. Lately, she’d been giving a lot of thought to what Travis said about planning. If then else. Put simply, if this happens, then do this, if that ain’t workin’, what else can you do. Could she really apply that same logic to poker? Could she plan a game?
No. Playing poker was more a matter of probabilities, the chance that something is likely to happen and drawing conclusions about the likelihood of those events. The theory was something she would work on at some other time.
Right now, she had a mission, and she had no intention of blowing it. Black told her to keep an eye on Mylo for him and that’s what she was gonna do. During her little breaks from the game, Jackie had done her best, which wasn’t very good, to plant listening devices around the house. Most didn’t work at all, and those that did had a lot of static. When Jackie told Monika about it, she laughed and promised to come with her one night and clean up her work.
Jackie was about to return to the game when Frank Sparrow, the middleweight champion of the world, came through the door with two other men. The entire mood of the room changed at that moment.
In the short time that she’d been playing there, Jackie had heard all sorts of stories about Sparrow. He was a big-time poker player, who liked to throw around money and usually lost big every time he came in the place. Everybody was glad to see Frank Sparrow.
Sparrow had grown up in Black’s neighborhood and was loyal to Black for helping support his career. Jackie couldn’t wait to get him at the table and decided to wait until he sat down to reclaim her seat. In the meantime, she ordered another drink and sought out a spot to observe the champ and how Mylo, who had just come out of the office, interacted with him.
From her vantagepoint, Jackie watched Sparrow work the room. Talkin’ loud, making predictions on the fight, fainting punches on demand to display his hand speed and spreading around a little money to the few working women in attendance.
For his part, Mylo laid back and waited for Sparrow to make his way over towards him. Jackie looked him over carefully and could see that Mylo was a bit jittery and looked nervous as he watched Sparrow make it around the room.
Since her surveillance set up was suspect, when Sparrow finally got to Mylo, Jackie had already moved into position to overhear the conversation. “What's up Champ?” Mylo said and embraced him.
“I know you’re surprised to see me, Mylo, but I escaped from lockdown for a few hours.” Sparrow boasted. “They can’t hold me. No man alive can stop me when I want something,” he continued and fainted a few punches.
“Yeah, Freeze wanted to bet me that you’d make it here before the fight. Glad I didn’t take any of that action.”
“Is Freeze here?” Sparrow asked and pointed toward the office.
“He’s not here, came through earlier.”
“I wanted to holla at that nigga; see what y’all was talkin’ ’bout,” Sparrow said.
“You ain’t gotta wait on Freeze, you can talk to me. I mean, that’s how it’s been all along, Champ; you and me. Come here, let me put somethin’ in ya ear.”
Mylo led Sparrow into the office and Jackie cursed, because the device she had placed on the doorframe had the worst static. Still it was worth a shot, so she went into the bathroom to try and pick up the conversation, but there was way too much distortion for her to make out anything.
“Look, here’s the deal. Bettin’ been real strong on you to win, lot of action on what round you’ll take him in,” Mylo said as soon as he closed the door. “Everybody knows you’re a slow starter. No one will think twice about you gettin’ caught with a clean shot early.”
It was almost a sure thing that Sparrow would win, but he often come out of the dressing room cold and had gone down in the first three rounds. Sparrow was able to come back and win in each of those fights by knock out, but the consensus was that one day, Sparrow would get caught with a shot that he couldn’t get up from.
“You go down in the first round,” Mylo explained to the champ again. “Everybody says, yeah, it was bound to happen sooner or later. You said it yourself, they insisted on a rematch clause. You take the rematch and you kick his ass in the second fight. But you come away from here with a cool million, no
t to mention the guarantee money from the second fight, ’cause you know it’s gonna be huge.”
“I don’t know, Mylo. Are you sure this is what Black wants me to do?”
“If he had known you were coming, he’d be here to tell you himself. In fact, he was in here earlier tonight wantin’ to know what you was gonna do. He said he was countin’ on you to do this and was on me to make it happen.”
Sparrow walked over and sat on the edge of the couch. He felt like he owed his career to Black for putting him onto a fight promoter that started getting him good fights. Still, it was a big decision, one he sat and thought long and hard about. Sparrow basically made up his mind that he was gonna do it and that was the main reason he begged his trainer for a night out, with the promise that there would be no gambling and no women.
“And this is what Black wants, right?” Sparrow still wanted to hear it one more time.
“He sat in that very spot and told me himself,” Mylo assured Sparrow.
“Okay, tell him I’m in,” Sparrow said and got up. “Tell Black I’m glad to do it for him.”
“He’ll be glad to hear that, Champ,” Mylo told him, I know I am. The truth was, Black and Freeze knew nothing about this. In fact, Mylo was still waiting for Black to actually speak to him. It was all Mylo’s idea for Sparrow to throw the fight. Mylo would tell Sparrow that Black wasn’t in on it after he had his money in his hand. At that point, what could he say?
Chapter Ten
Mike Black
When Mystique was changed, we took a cab to our usual hotel. On the way, she told me about the drama that happened earlier at Cynt's. Two of the dancers got into a fight over a customer. “And she’s holding the girl by her wave,” Mystique said laughing. “And hittin’ her in the face and sayin’, ‘I done told your skank ass ’bout fuckin’ wit’ my customers.’ ”
“She hurt her bad?”
“Busted her lips, her nose was bleedin’ and her eye looked like it’s gonna look fucked up tomorrow.”
