Chapter 1

I had just sat down at the Pai Gow table, ready to kill an hour or two until my wife and two young granddaughters got out of the Lee Ann Rimes concert they were all attending. I was playing my $10 to $320.00 negative betting progression at the table, trying to get in enough playing time to justify the free room and the free concert tickets they had given me. The comps, or complimentary gifts, were given out to casino players to encourage them to stay and play at the casino. The more you played, and the higher you wagered, the better the comps. I'm a low level better when I play cards over at any of the state line casinos, but even there, I can play for a long time with my progressive betting systems. If I get stuck too bad though, their maximum betting limits are so low that I have to drive the forty miles into Las Vegas to play my system past the first level.

The thing I like best about my system is that you win right up until the minute you lose six hands in a row. Losing six in a row would cost me $630.00. Sometimes though, you never lose six in a row, and you get to quit winners. Some people like to shoot themselves in the head and get it over quickly. Others, people like me, we like to jump off of high places, and enjoy the ride down. It's a lot of fun until you reach the bottom. My systems aren't supposed to be winning systems, they are meant to prolong the time that I get to play. Often, I spend a few days and nights as the guest of the casinos, usually leaving with more money than I came with. Occasionally, I have an extended run of bad luck and will drop a bundle.When that happens, I come back with even more money and win back whatever I've lost.

So, anyway, I'm sitting there, playing Pai Gow and, as it usually happens, the other players at the table are all talking with each other, being sociable while they gamble. I'm the same way. I like being sociable. I even have my tried and tested brand of witty patter, mostly what I'd call self deprecating humor, things I say that makes some gentle fun of my old brain, and of my relationship I have with my wife.

I've been told I'm funny. Not by my wife, but by strangers like these that I meet in these casinos. I like to play and pass the time pleasantly. I can be a real sour puss at times, but, mostly, I'm someone who tries to be pleasant and get along with people. Mostly, I do, get along with people, I mean.

Sitting next to me, on my immediate left, was a fairly attractive woman in her mid to late thirties, with a shorter style of dark blonde hair, and a body that was ten, or even possibly, fifteen pounds on the heavier side of perfect. She had the kind of body that was just the teensiest bit on the ripe side, the kind that causes those men who live in trailer parks and think beer is a food group, to sometimes yell out when they see this kind of girl: "You'd be really purty sweetheart, if'n you was to lose them extra twenty pounds yo'all be carryin'."

I'm not like those kind of men, so, instead of yelling that at her, I sat there quietly, thinking it, but letting my thoughts go unspoken. She was an attractive woman, no doubt about it, but there was something about her that somehow seemed not quite right to me.

We had been sitting there together for about ten minutes when Cindy, that was the girl's name, asked me what it was I did for a living. That had been the table's current topic of conversation, all of the people at the table wanting to celebrate the diversity of having all of us brought together like this in a casino such as this one, far from all our real homes. I had developed a whole wide array of pithy comments that I could make in situations just like this one.

"I used to be a land developer, a long time ago, but now I'm pretty much retired. I still play a lot of poker though, and I sometimes write porn stories and put them up on the internet."

I thought that was a pretty good reply to her question. It was interesting, and just a little bit provocative too. The combination of things I admitted to doing would be unexpected, coming from a relic of my advanced years. I was sure I'd get a comment or two, and at least a few follow up questions about the stories I claimed to write. No one ever admits to actually reading dirty stories on line.

"What sites do you write for, and what name do you write under?"

I could tell, just from the expression on her face, that Cindy was really interested, and wanted to hear my answer. I hadn't expected either of those two questions. Hell, it was just a throw away line I sometimes used in situations like this anyway. She was supposed to have just laughed, and maybe asked me if it paid very well. Since the answer to that question would lead right into a whole battery of funny one liners I'd carefully rehearsed, I had expected to be able to hold forth, and with my quick delivery, to soon have the table rolling in laughter. I looked over at her, knowing that she was serious.

"I use the name "Openbook", I write and publish my stories only at Storiesonline for now."

"I've read some of your stories. Your descriptions of the oral sex guys perform on women were hilarious. My lover and I really got a lot of good laughs at that story you wrote about the old geezer who was sent back in time. The one who always thought he was such a great lover. Reading it made me wonder if you have ever actually gone down on a woman before?"

This wasn't turning out at all like I'd planned on. I could feel my face coloring. I can take criticism of my writing. Well, I can take it if it's something about a misplaced comma, or maybe a semi colon that doesn't belong where I put it. But, I'll be fucked in the ass if I'm going to just sit out in some public venue and put up with some total stranger questioning my credentials to be writing smut on some relatively obscure online site that mostly features erotic stories written by amateurs. Just who the fuck did she think she was?

I'd eaten pussy, and lots of it. I can't say I'd never had any complaints about my technique, because I did have. The thing was though, I hadn't been writing about my own technique, so why was she talking to me like this, embarrassing me this way? With this type of criticism, I found myself bristling, wanting to strike back at her for what she was doing to me.

"Yes I certainly have, and, for your information, I'd be willing to bet that it was at least as many as you've done that to." I expected my little dig, announcing my own suspicions about which side of the plate she batted from, would be enough to stop her right there in her tracks.

"I seriously doubt that, Mr. Book. As a matter of fact, I've engaged in oral sex with more than one hundred different women. Can you honestly say that your own personal experience is the same or greater?"

A hundred woman? What the hell had I let myself in for here? Even the dealer had stopped doing what she was doing in order to listen to what my answer was going to be. The floor supervisor was standing right there next to her, and she didn't tell the dealer to resume dealing either.

I'm an old man, so I'm already used to lying to women. I was certainly no stranger to exaggeration either. If she had challenged me by claiming to have done that with five, or even six, women, I'd have lied, almost without thinking, and claimed ten or twelve for myself. Why not? She couldn't prove that I hadn't done that many.

To be perfectly candid though, after she threw that big a number at me, I couldn't even think of any lie I could possibly tell. Not one that would be, in any way, even remotely believable. On top of that, I was starting to worry that she might actually be able to remember some parts of that story. Even worse, suppose she was able to quote from my story, verbatim, right there at the table, now, in front of everyone? It would only take one or two sentences quoted from her lips to expose me as the know nothing fraud that I am.

Even worse than that, like any other married man would be, I was afraid my wife might come sneaking up on me, for some crazy reason right then. It was possible that she hadn't liked the free concert seats we had been given, or maybe, the concert had been canceled.

Who could tell what perverse series of events might suddenly produce her, there, right behind me. If she was there, she'd be able to listen in on whatever untruth I might have decided to try to get away with. If she did come over right then, she would be certain to wade right in, naturally, on Cindy's side. If that happened, I'd never be able to live it down with her. I had to say something though, and I had to do it damned quickly too. I just needed to make whatever I said in reply suitably vague. This was so that whatever I said couldn't expose me to any further possibilities of ridicule.