Chapter 1

I watched them from across the table, doing a ballet that seemed natural from years of experience. They were pretty good but I had been trained by masters and if you know what you’re looking for it’s pretty easy to spot. Surprisingly, she was better than he was. I think her hands made it easier for her, long and slender fingers that seemed almost double jointed.

He was a big sucker, 6’5” I’d guess, and she was just barely five feet tall. They followed their M.O. and came in separately, pretending to know each other only casually. I knew they were man and wife. He was loud and blustery and she wore a shirt cropped so short the bottom of her boobs showed if she reached up a little. A damned good distraction in my opinion.

I’d played with them before but they didn’t recognize me. It had been a year and I had a full beard and longer hair back then. Now I was cleanshaven and tanned, my hair almost buzzed it was so short.

I’d recognized their scam right away so I played a few hands and left. My friend was a little too drunk to take the hint and they picked him like a banjo, taking almost ten grand before the game was over. They would alternate giving each other winning hands and every once in a while they’d let their marks win a big hand to keep them hooked. But by the end of the night they’d be the big winners. The take was always between thirty and fifty grand and they would disappear immediately afterwards. It wasn’t a lot of money in the grand scheme of things but if you could do it two or three times a week it added up fast.

I wasn’t in it to win so I’d run up the cards myself when it was my turn to deal, letting one of the innocents win. I’d give one of them the seond best hand and they’d bet like crazy and stare in disbelief when the cards turned. I was keeping them from racking up big wins and they started getting more reckless.

When it was time to go in for the kill, I dealt him a full house, three queens and two aces. I dealt her a flush and made sure the other three players had good hands as well. I knew he was figuring the odds. With two of the aces he knew no one could have a full house aces high and with his queens only one full house could beat him, kings full. I’d dealt myself two of the aces as up cards so he would know where they all were. I had two kings hidden.

I bet with the aces and got three raises. I checked the next time and called two raises. The next card for me was my third king and I made sure his wife got the fourth one. The guy had to be figuring with two kings showing there was no way I had the any of the others so when I bet he immediately raised. The king I gave his wife made her hand a king high flush so she thought she’d sweeten the pot to make it a bigger payday in case she had the winning hand. Everyone else dropped out and I raised back.

We were playing seven card stud and the last card was dealt face down. I bet and both raised me. I raised back, making it a seven thousand dollar pot. They called.

“King high flush!,” she crowed as she showed her cards.

“Sorry girl. I got queens full.” He showed the hand and reached for the pot.

“Don’t you want to see what I got?”

“Sure.”

Both were shocked beyond words when I rolled my hidden kings. I raked in the pot while the other players congratulated me. The couple eyed me warily trying to determine if they’d been taken.

It was his turn to deal next. I waited until it was him because I figured the others would be more gentle with the woman.

I counted out five thousand. “Before you deal, how about a little side bet?”

He eyed the cash hungrily. I think the wife saw something in my eyes and she was franctically trying to warn him. His smirk was huge. “I’ll cover that. The winning hand gets the cash.”

I made him count his money and put it beside mine. “Oh, I wasn’t betting on the hand.”

“What are you betting on then?”

“I’m betting if we turn the deck over right now there will be four aces on the bottom. If they aren’t you get the ten grand.”

They both knew thay’d been caught and he tried to bluster out of it. Two of the other players glard at him. “Shut the fuck up and flip those cards! Right fucking now!”

He grabbed for the deck but my hand landed on his. “This is a scam boys. The lady here is his wife and she’s in on it. Hell’s bells, she’s a better mechanic than he’ll ever be.”

They looked over at her, surprised to see the little automatic in her hands. “You guys be cool and no one gets hurt. We’ll be taking the money and leaving now.”

I grinned and flashed the little Bulldog .44 I carried as a belly gun. It was legal and I had a carry conceal permit for it so I was covered. That pistol might be small but the barrel looked like it was a mile wide if it’s pointed at you. “You need to lay that peashooter on the table or I’ll blow a hole in your husband you can put your fist through.”

I threw back the hammer and she dropped the little automatic immediately. One of the other players grabbed it. I had him hold his hands high while they turned over the deck. I never took my eyes off him but called every ace by suit as it was turned.

The other three players started raising hell. I let them rant for a minute before I told them to grab both stacks of money and count them. Thirty nine thousand. “Here’s the deal. We all get ten grand except me. I’ll take the short stack and the side bet. I’ll be leaving now. You guys can decide what to do with these two.”

I picked up my money and the nine grand and backed out. I counted it later and was twenty-eight thousand to the good. I saw the couple the next day as I was checking out. Both had one hand in a cast. I was guessing it would be a long time before they were flexible enough to run up a deck, if ever. I had no sympathy.

...

I never started out to be a professional poker player. I didn’t get to start out at all truth be told. My mother was a nineteen year old slut when she fucked up somehow and rolled up pregnant. She was too dumb to realize she was pregnant until her fourth month and by then no clinic would touch her. I was born in a charity ward and she struggled out of the bed and left when I was two days old. She must have had an attack of conscience because she came back just before they put me in the system. I often wondered after I grew up how my life would have been if some loving couple would have adopted me. Would I be different from what I am now? I hoped so.

She dragged me around from one abusive boyfriend to another for eight years before she finally pissed her latest methhead boyfriend off enough to kill her. In front of me. I denied any recollection of it later but I can still see it in vivid detail. At least it was quick. He hit her with a glass bong when he thought she was holding out on him. The bong broke and the base went into her throat, cutting the jugular. She drowned in her own blood.

The boyfriend took off and I sat there and watched as she gurgled and twitched before going still. I walked across the hall of the dive apartment building and pounded on three doors before someone let me in.

The cops came and took her away. I watched them roll the sheet covered body away and tried to find some emotion. In the end I just stared.

I was in foster care for two months before they found a living relative, a great uncle. He was around forty at the time and had been raised in the system. It had not been a pleasant childhood. He bore the scars internally and on his body to the grave.

The man didn’t want me but didn’t want the state to get me. Apparently he was a fairly well to do businessman and even though he wasn’t married he got a good lawyer and spread some money around. I went home with him carrying a garbage bag with a few clothes and that was all.

He had a live in lover who was a few years younger. I don’t know what he said to convince her to stay because at first she did not like me. After about six months she warmed to me, triggered when I came home from school beat to shit. A scraped nose, two black eyes, chipped teeth, and a pretty good gash in my scalp. First she took me to the hospital for treatmant and x-rays, then the next morning she took me to school and barged into the principal’s office.

“How did you allow this to happen?! Why did you feel it wasn’t necessary to call me? You fucked with the wrong woman, mister. No one beats my kid and gets away with it.”

He tried to bluster out of it but the fact was three middle-schoolers had jumped me in front of three teachers as I was waiting for the bus. I got two good licks in and managed to slam one head into a trash can before the serious ass kicking began. One kid was the son of the head of the school board, another the son of a successful businessman, and the last was the son of a cop. They pulled them off me and put me on the bus, telling me not to make waves.

Then my greatuncle showed up and it got really interesting because he had brought his lawyer along. Two hours later the boys and their parents were apologising profusely. They got suspended for three days right at the end of the JV football season and the team got their asses kicked because of it.

My great-uncle made me call him Jake. His girlfriend was named Lillian and that’s what I called them my whole life. Jake took me to a friend of his, a retired boxer on disability. The man didn’t teach me how to box. He taught me how to fight, showing me every dirty trick he knew and then had some buddies come in to show me more. One guy was in matial arts for a long time. I’ll never forget his advice.

“There’s a lot to martial arts but the serious ones all come down to the same thing. Eliminate your opponent. It’s great to be able to do a roundhouse kick to the head, but it’s simpler to kick them in the balls or the kneecap. Most guys have this romantic notion of fair play and that’s bullshit. The sonofabitch is trying to hurt you and he deserves everything that happens to him.”

So at nine and ten years old I learned to fight dirty and for keeps.

Jake owned a pool hall. He was a pretty good stick in his day. In fact he won the business in a game. He ran a clean place with good tables and didn’t let anybody get out of hand. In that state it was legal to bet on games, classified as a ‘wager of skill’, not like poker, deemed a ‘game of chance’.

Not that poker didn’t go on in the backroom. It was a clean game, the house getting five dollars off the pot at the start and five per cent at the end. It was pretty profitable if you were the house.

I started working for Jake when I was twelve, cleaning the place and racking the balls. He charged a buck rack fee and I got to keep half. It doesn’t sound like much but he had thirty tables and it took two of us to keep ‘em racked.

The place sold beer so I wasn’t exactly legal but Jake had a good relationship with the cops. There was usually one or two in every night for a game or a few beers. Jake usually gave them free tables, getting more than paid back by their presence.

He even taught me how to play pool over the course of the years. I was a pretty good stick but nowhere near his leauge. Still, I was good enough to make drinking money when I went off to college.

He kept a deck of beatup cards on the bar and patrons would often play a quick game of knock for beers. One of the cops taught me how to play gin rummy. I had a good head for numbers and could see the possibilties in every card so I became really hard to beat. I got so good Jake called me one Friday night just before nine. “Have Lil bring you down. I got something you need to do.”

He took me straight back to the poker room. There was a guy sitting at the table and his eyes got big. “A kid? You’re fucking kidding me! I thought you were bringing me the best gin player you knew.”

Jake grinned. “I did. Still want to play or do you want to admit you’re afraid of a kid?”

“Fuck that. As long as the money is all grown up I’m fine.”

We were playing for a hundred, two if you got skunked. He won the first two games and was grinning like mad, talking shit. “This ain’t Old Maid, kid. Why don’t you run along home now.”

I beat him the next three times, skunking him twice. Then the rest of the guys watching started feeding the shit back to him. “How’s it feel gettin’ skunked by a kid? I thought you were supposed to be the best. I guess not.”

The dude got so mad he made a side bet that before the end of the night he’d wear me out. By the time he’d lost a grand he was nervous. When he went two grand down he was sweating. He was almost another grand down when he threw the deck across the room. “I’m beat, kid. You’re the best.”

I was a little nervous because I’d seen some sore losers get a little crazy. He just shook my hand, called the guys a bunch of assholes for running a ringer in on him, and left. Jake waited until he walked out to come back into the room. He counted the money and grinned. “Me and Charley put up 300 apiece. If you lost that we were going to stop.”

He kept a grand, Charley got a grand, and they gave me the rest. Six hundred bucks. I showed it to Lil that night and she grinned. Then she took me to the bank on Monday and made me put all but a hundred in a savings account.

Jake watched me riffle the cards when I wasn’t racking balls. “You got good hands, kid. Let me show you something.” He shuffled the cards, had me cut, then laid out a hand of seven card stud. I had four kings. He had four aces. He shuffled and I cut again, then he laid out four sevens for me and four nines for him.

“I ain’t that good, kid. Any pro would have known what I was doing before I offered the cut. So if you’re thinking about playing poker when you turn eighteen you better forget it. I know guys who would eat you alive and not miss a wink of sleep.”

It was good advice that I couldn’t take, so at fifteen he started my education. He had five guys come in and every one taught me a different way to cheat and spot how to know I was being cheated. I learned how to stack decks, palm cards, even how to mark them without getting caught. One old guy let the fingernail on the little finger of his left hand grow long. He then put clear nail polish on it to make it stronger and he would casually flick it along the edge of a card, always in a different place. He wore amber tinted prescription glasses that picked up the slightly flourescent paint he’d coated his fingernail with and tell by the markings what the other players had. As far as I know he never got caught.

Between high school and college I started playing, always low stakes games. It was a learning experience and made it less likely that anyone would cheat. I did catch a few and made it a point of running up the cards and giving them the second best hand every time. I’d set up random players to win and save the last for myself, usually making it the best pot of the night.

I made money. I didn’t win a lot of splashy pots but I won enough little ones to be profitable. Jake had plans for me to go to college and every bit of my winnings went into a 529 fund. Then one summer day he came in grinning. He handed me a brochure, telling me I had been selected to spend a spa weekend at a hotel I’d never heard of in the mountains of another state. “What’s this?”

“Forget the spa shit. It’s an invitation to a poker tournament held twice a year. It’s a two grand buy in and the organizers get 10% right off the bat and a cut of every pot. It’s a winner take all deal, you play until only one is left.”

“What makes you think I have the skill level for something like that?”

“You don’t boy. I expect you’ll go bust pretty quick”

“Then why are you wasting your money?”

“It’s not just my money. Two more guys helped put up the fee. The thing is, nobody leaves when they fall out of the tournament, they stay and play for the rest of the time. That’s where we make our money. We’re putting up another five grand and we get 50% of what you make when it’s over.”

“What if I lose?”

“We shrug our shoulders and go on. It’s why it’s called gambling.”

...

The tournament was at an almost bankrupt golf course. The owners had ambitious plans, building a clubhouse and a nice motel and restaurant. It started failing immediately due to poor management, and the guys who rented it out twice a year was about the only thing that kept them afloat.

We had the motel to ourselves and security was tight. You were frisked on your way in and and your luggage was gone through. I had to show them my license to prove I was of legal age. We checked in, had a nice lunch, and gathered in the ballroom. One of the organizers got our attention.

“I’d like to thank you all for participating. If you’re a returning visitor welcome. If you’re new here are the rules. No Violence! You will be asked to leave. No whining. You know the chances you take when you sit down at the table. The last rule is to play clean. Any monkey business will get you ejected pretty quick and there won’t be a refund. You’ll never get to come back and if you’re caught during a side game any money on the table stays on the table. Everybody got it? Good. All right ladies and gentlemen, commence.”

I was probably the youngest player there so I instantly became known as The Kid. My first table had three more guys ranging from forty to mid-sixties, and one woman in her fifties. She was the toughest player at the table and it soon came down to just us two. She almost beat me twice before I got hot. They all seemed stunned when the table manager gathered up the chips.

There were fifty tables of five players each to start. When your table was done you were free to play golf or enjoy the pool while you waited for the others to finish. You could form games with the other losers if that was your wish. The house got a cut of every pot. One contest lasted almost four hours before a winner emerged. We then had a nice dinner and did an evening session.

Fifty tables were down to ten. I was set with a couple of old guys, a man in his forties, and a hot redhead in her early thirties. She was dressed to distract and it was working. Her boobs nearly fell out of her tank top every time she leaned in to rake in chips or deal.

There are types of players. Some come across as your friend hoping you’ll have sympathy on them in a crunch. Some are talkers, keeping up a running commentary about just about everything. And some are bullies, trying to find out what gets under your skin and needling you mercilessly to knock you off your game. Younger women were called Fluff, because they used their physical appearance to distract you. Others are called Statue, because nothing seems to faze them. I was a Statue, taught by the best.

The younger guy was about six three and while he had a belly roll he still had a lot of muscles. He also had a mouth. He probed for weaknesses and tried to exploit them. We all pretty much ignored him at the beginning but about an hour in he started ragging one of the older guys about his recently passed wife. He got so emotional he misplayed his hand and was out.

That left him, the woman, and me. He tried ragging the woman but she had a quick mind and a sharp wit. He saw her ring and asked her if she was interested in spending some time with a real man. “Sure! Know any? All I see here are flabby guys and a kid. He is kind of cute though and he’s pretty cut. Maybe I’ll take it on myself to continue his education. I could use a boytoy for the rest of the weekend.”

He flamed bright red and some of the watchers that had gathered laughed so he turned his attention to me. He said something smart about a college boy and I laughed.

“You’re right, I am just a college boy. I’m studying satistics and probabilites. Just from our interactions, I think the probability is about 80% of you having a little dick. You seem to be overcompensating a lot. Satistically, I put it around 67% that your wife is cheating on you. She seems to have disappeared. I wonder where she is now?”

I’d seen his ring and watched him at dinner with a much younger brunette who was showing a lot of skin. I’d seen her before, flirting with some guys at the bar. She was laying it on thick, rubbing her body against a couple as they plied her with drinks.

He couldn’t help but look around wildly but she was nowhere in sight. I grinned. “I wouldn’t worry too much. I’m sure she’s around ... somewhere.”

The woman chimed in. “Yeah, he’s probably right. I’m sure she’s close. I bet you could find her if you looked. The hotel doesn’t have that many rooms.”

He went on a rant while everyone listening laughed. A couple of guys he’d beaten ragged him, pretending to have a conversation about where they’d seen her last, and who she was with. He went out in five hands, his concentration completely shot. I heard the next morning he’d found her with two guys and no clothes and he raised so much hell that he, the wife, and the two guys she was with were escorted out and invited to not come back.

Pam grinned at me when everything settled down. “Wanna make it interesting?”

“What have you got in mind?”

“One hand, all in. If I win, I get you as a boy toy for the rest of the weekend. If you win then I’ll be your sex slave. It’s not a bad deal for either of us. It just establishes who’s in charge.”

I could see her diamond. “Sorry, I make it a point to never get tangled up with married women.” She giggled.

“We have an understanding. I come to this type of thing about three times a year on average. Without bragging I’m pretty good and a good bit of our income for the year is a result. While I’m gone he indulges himself and I usually pick a guy or guys to hook up with. It’s all over the minute I get home until I go out again.”

I’d encountered a couple of open arrangements at Jake’s bar. One woman was firmly convinced she would be the one to take my virginity. I was fifteen at the time and thought it was a hell of an idea. Then Jake came along and made her leave. It wasn’t until I turned eighteen that he hooked me up with not one but two women in their late twenties as a birthday gift. I spent three days with them and they gave me an intentsive course on how women liked to be pleased. I found out later he’d auctioned off my virginity to the highest bidder. Always make money, his personal creed.

“Agreed. If you get hubby on the phone and get him to say it’s okay.”

“Deal!”

“Deal.”

We shook hands and pushed our piles into the middle of the table. Every one watching heard the bet and soon it spread through the room. There must have been a hundred people watching when the hand played out.

I won on a pretty poor hand. She had a pair of fours with an ace kicker. I was sweating bullets because I didn’t have a pair and my high card was a nine. Pam was licking her lips until the last card, when a second nine appeared.

She sat there for a minute then looked me in the eye. “What do you want first?”

“I want you to go back to your room and put on the sexiest thing you brought. Then I want you to come back into the bar with your husband on the phone.”

She smirked a little, leaning over to give me an almost unobstructed view of her breasts. I noted her nipples were hard as she stood up and swayed across the room.

I walked up to the bar stopping to get a pat on the back and a handshake here and there. The bartender had my beer waiting. I’d told one of the organizers how old I was and he grinned. “Look where you are. If we get busted the last thing I’m going to be worried about is a charge for underage drinking. Just try not to overdo it.”

I’d been sneaking beers since forever so I made sure to keep it to no more than three.

...

People stopped talking and I wondered what was going on until Pam came into sight. She had on the ultimate little black dress, one that showed a little cleavage and fell to midthigh. Her makeup was perfect and she had a gleam in her eye as she swayed towards me seductively. She was holding her cell in her hand.

When she reached me her hand snaked around my neck and she gave me a hard kiss, filled with toungue and promise. Then she held the phone up and giggled. “It’s for you!”

I took it, turning away from the bar so I could hear better. “Hello?”

“I take it I’m talking with the infamous Kid, right?”

“Yes you are.”

“Great. Pam told me what happened and I’m totally cool with it. I’m glad you won. If she goes on a streak she gets almost insufferable. A few words of advice. She’s not used to being the loser and has a bit of an ego. But to her there is nothing more sacred than honoring a bet. Deep down I think she has a submissive streak. See if you can bring it out and you both might have a very good weekend.”

“How?”

“Shit Kid, you’re eighteen. Tell me you haven’t been surfing porn since you learned how to keyboard. Use your imagination. Luck, Kid.”

He hung up and Pam grinned sexily. “I thought we night...”

“You don’t get to think, slut. You get to do what I tell you.”

She colored up but before the sharp retort came out she sighed. “Yes ... Sir ... Master. what do you want me to call you?”

“Sir sounds good. Now, while I appreciate your effort that outfit doesn’t please me. Go back to your room and fix it. I want to see a lot more tit, and your hem should be short enough to show your panties if you take a deep breath. I want everyone to know what a hot bitch you are. Understand?”

Emotions rolled over her face before she sighed. “Yes Sir. I’ll be right back.”

Twenty minutes later she was back. The top of the dress had been all but removed. I asked her later why she didn’t spill out and she showed me the two sided tape she used on occasion. Her hem just barely covered her ass and when she sat on the stool everyone who was looking got a shot of her purple thong and a really nice ass. And with the entrance she made, everyone in the bar was looking. I had another beer while she sucked down three strong drinks.

I started fondling her at the bar and she stiffened. aware everyone could see us. I rubbed her nipples and the got even harder than they had been, then casually swiped my fingers across the front of her thong, not surprised to find her soaking wet. I waited until she finished the last of her drink before tugging her up.

“Come along, my slave. Let’s go for a midnight stroll.”

I had the back of her skirt up, sure all enjoyed the sight of my hand on her bare ass.

The golf course ran beside the hotel, and the putting green of the fourth hole was just beyond the parking lot. I walked her to the middle of the green and pushed her to her knees. “Suck. Now!”

She almost tore my zipper off trying to get to my cock and soon had it buried to the root in her mouth. All the teasing had left me hard and ready and five minutes later it was over. She’d swallowed and gently nursed me clean before letting it slip out of her mouth.

I shocked the hell out of her by dropping to my knees beside ner and pushing her over. I slid the thong off and attacked her pussy with fingers and tongue. I wasn’t gentle, or slow, and I had her screams echoing off the course in less than a minute. She came hard after a minute, and even harder five minutes after that. We were both gasping like we’d run a marathon.

I jumped up and pulled her to her feet. Without letting her clean up I led her back into the hotel. My zipper was broke, we’d lost the thong, and the tape had lost the fight. We had grass stains all over us, her pussy was shining and one breast was completely exposed as we waited for the elevator. I’d ordered her to stand proud and she did nothing to cover herself as we got on the elevator and walked down the hall giving about a dozen people an eye full.

We took a shower together and tried our best to break the bed before falling into exhausted sleep about two. I’d ordered her to wake me with a blowjob and that’s what she did. It was a fine way to start the morning.

I let her dress a little more conservatively for breakfast but we still got a lot of looks and grins. Pam glowed red the whole time. We had time for a round of golf and she managed to win four hundred before I had to go to my game. The only reason she didn’t win more was because I started playing with her on the tenth hole, had her teased to orgasm by the twelth, and got a hell of a standup fuck in the bushes behind the fifteenth green.

We were down to three players when she stopped by to give me a very nice kiss and tell me to rub her ass for luck. I did a good job of it, slipping my hand under her dress and teasing her a little while one of my opponents dealt. I won the hand easily and she giggled as she pulled away. “I’d crawl under the table and give you a little more luck honey, but I don’t think the table manager would let me.”

I won the table forty minutes later, meaning I was going to go heads up against the player who won at the other table.

...

The showdown started at one. Players were sardined around the table. We both had roughly$230,000 in chips, the cuts taking the rest. We played for six hours before I lost. The cards ran to him and there was nothing I could do about it. I went all in on a high card full house and he’d hit a six high straight flush. He grinned and shook my hand. “You’re a hell of a player, Kid, and you’re only going to get better.”