Chapter 119: End of an Eventful Day

Sunday, April 24, 2005 (Continued)

As soon as we were sitting in the car Prof said, "You were 100% on the tests?"

"Yes. It's actually quite easy, provided I concentrate for the thirty seconds or so that it takes."

"A couple of the tests I watched seemed close to failing?"

"I thought you might think that. I was sort of showing off, sort of teasing you, and also practicing for real. We don't want the ball to make a beeline for the number we've bet on, and I thought close calls like that look more believable. There was never any possibility of those two falling into the wrong pocket. Imagine you had been holding the ball between four of your fingers, and deliberately wobbling it on the edge of the barrier. You've got such a good grip on it that it's not going to fall anywhere unless you want it to. That's what it's like for me."

"How does the wheel rotating at the same time affect things? That must make it harder, mustn't it?"

"Hardly at all during the end-game, surprisingly. 'End-game' is what I call the last few seconds before the ball settles in a pocket. It'd be easier if the wheel was stationary, but its rotating slowly makes less difference than you'd think. If you were using a real hand to do what I do, you'd have trouble rotating your arms and wrists all the way around four or five times. Wrists can barely turn 180 degrees, let alone 1800 degrees! Plus there's a lot of inertia involved in moving your arm around in a circle, and it would be hard keeping it precisely in time with the wheel. But I don't have either of those problems. I can move my TK-points as fast as I want as they have no mass of their own, and I don't have to use any force to get the ball to move with the wheel, as the wheel does all of that for me, thanks to good old Newton. All I need to do is apply a little bit of force to alter the relative position of the ball compared with the wheel, such as to tip it into the pocket I want. At those speeds there's virtually no centrifugal force or inertia, so they're non-issues too. The end-game is EASY. I spent nearly all my time working out how to manage the middle-game; that's when the ball's bouncing around."

"In that case, I'll call Vanessa and tell her the good news." Of course without yet starting the car; this was Prof!

The conversation was short, "Mark has it nailed 100%. We're leaving now. I'll tell you more when we get home."

Vanessa spoke briefly, then they hung up and we set off.

On the way back Prof said, "Vanessa did some more online research after our previous conversation, but didn't find out anything else of use. I thought about it while we were playing. It occurred to me that a small casino like that one wouldn't want someone to walk in and bet $50,000 on a single number, because that could bankrupt them, so they need some sort of maximum to protect themselves. But a $10 maximum seems bizarrely cautious. And $100 in the huge Las Vegas casinos seems even less comprehensible."

Before I could answer, my phone rang. Julia, of course, with Carol beside her. I interrupted her very early, telling her, "This is NOT the time and place for a phone conversation. I'll talk with you when I get home." Then I hung up. Actually the time and place was fine, it was the subject that was the problem, but I didn't want to sound like I had a secret that couldn't be mentioned over the phone, because I had a secret that couldn't be mentioned over the phone. Without doubt Vanessa had told Julia about our success, and Julia's excitement made her call me just so she could hear about it again, but I couldn't take the risk of her saying something dangerous. Females have to 'share' emotions rather than simply accepting a fact, but in this case she could sit on her excitement for an hour.

On the drive home Prof's comments seemed overly optimistic about our overall project, which implied that my accomplishment was far more important than the maximum bet problem. To me they both seemed equally important because we were dead if we couldn't do either of them. I queried Prof on this, and he said, "There's only one of you, so your success was the most critical. There are probably thousands of casinos, so we have a much better chance of finding one that'll do what we want. Or maybe we'll think of another approach. Having so many casinos to choose from, or try different approaches with, gives us lots of choices." That was hard to argue with.

The rest of the drive home we wound down with inconsequential matters, Prof teasing me about Candy, both of us joking about some of the other players we'd seen doing silly things (plenty of material there), and joking about how silly roulette was (nothing but good material there).

As we neared home Prof reminded me about the sideburns and to swap my licenses. I was glad I wasn't doing this by myself because I'd forgotten about those. I suggested that he might as well keep my disguise with the fake license, as I'd never need one without the other, which he agreed with.

We were greeted as conquering heroes. The females' attitude seemed more than a little premature to me, but evidently not to them. I took advantage of their exuberance to ask for a snack, which was enthusiastically gathered. The Boys were there too, so we kept the conversation innocuous until they excused themselves after a few minutes. Our conversation became much more explicit, with Julia and Carol immediately wanting to know ALL the details. In the course of that discussion it was obvious that they were totally confident that millions of dollars were just about to fall into our hands. I had to ask, "Didn't Vanessa tell you that we have a real problem with the maximum bet?"

Vanessa had, but Julia didn't care about that, "That's not important! Dad will find a way around that. The important thing is that you're so fantastic!" There was more gushing from the girls, more self-effacing from me, more gushing from the girls. That's another way females are.

Prof and Vanessa said they'd work on trying to find a solution to the maximum bet problem. Prof said he'd also do some more general research, in case we tripped over other problems.

In the course of the conversation, Carol and Julia learned that $45,000 was coming to me from the school in a few days, which was a nice surprise for them. I asked them to keep Donna in the dark about it though, so her car money gift to me wasn't devalued.

Prof said, "Mark, once your money comes through, and we find a solution to the maximum bet problem, are you happy to go to Vegas and do this for real? Can you think of any problems? Do you need any more practice?"

"Doing it for real is a terrifying prospect, but I know I can do it if the game is the same in Vegas. The weight of the ball is important, so I want to have some practice down there before you play for real. There could be other differences too, so I definitely need to check the place out before you play. Clothing was also an issue. We should research that, and probably dress quite differently from each other if we want to appear to be strangers. But those are my only two issues. In some ways I wish we could win the money in nice slow steps so it wouldn't be so nerve-racking, but I understand that two quick wins and getting outta there is safer."

"Good. That's what we'll aim for then."

#1: <{Gulp}.>

Not long after that we ended the discussion and headed upstairs to bed. As I was leaving the room, I heard Vanessa say to Prof, "How much energy do you have left, or do I have to remind you about the teenage girls you saw naked this afternoon?" I shut my ears and walked faster.

One reason to walk faster was that my girls were in the same mood as Vanessa, which was much more enjoyable for me to think about. The conquering hero was required to perform two more heroic deeds, which I finished to everyone's satisfaction. Afterward I suddenly remembered something, "Hey, Carol. I need to make up for my failure to have rubbers with me last night. We should go again." With my go-hard ability, this wasn't a problem; and probably wouldn't have been anyway.

Carol said, "You may want sex twenty times a day, but twice is fine for me. I feel good, and I know Julia wants to talk with you so I'll save it for another day. Is that okay?"

I was already worried about the time. I only need four hours per night, but the girls need double that and it was already too late for that, so I agreed by saying, "I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist on paying interest. 50% per day sounds about right. With luck I'll never clear the debt."

After the small chuckle that weak joke didn't particularly deserve, Julia said, "I'd forgotten about the girls in the tub. Who did the deed properly and who faked it?"

I could remember Julia saying that knowledge was entirely between the girl and me, which amused me as I told her. Adding the news that three girls had excused it by quietly claiming that they were virgins.

Julia was interested in all the information, but we didn't waste time discussing it.

We did discuss something very interesting though: Chloe. Julia said, "I'm lining up your reward for you. A very apologetic Chloe called while you were working. It seems that she's been on the receiving end of a never-ending stream of very helpful girls telling her the incredible things they'd learned about you, especially that you're far too emotionally mature to care about her breasts and that she should trust you totally. I, of course, apologized to her for my loss of temper, and she said that the girls had already explained all about that, and that it was totally her fault. It went as I thought it would, especially because she's so happy to have a boy like her for who she is. That boy being as nice and handsome as you is beyond her hopes. All you need to do now is prove that her tits don't motivate you at all, and that's easy.

^-- "You were on the right track in your parking lot discussion with Chloe, in trying to make her believe that her breasts weren't important to you. Your direction was correct, but you were FAR too cautious in pursuing it. You care too much about not inflicting even the slightest amount of emotional upset, which causes you to be ridiculously gentle, costing you far too much time and effort. Sometimes a slap on the face can be better, and it's a great deal quicker. That's effectively what I did, taking a fraction of the time you'd taken. Getting others to do the rest of the work for me saved me even more time. Because Chloe needs to learn to trust guys from a guy, we'll have to double-team her, so we get the best of your approach and mine. This is what we're going to do with her over the next day or two..." Julia went on to discuss her plan, what she was going to do, and what my role would later be. It was quite easy, and made even easier by Julia doing most of the work (I'll omit the details of her plan, because you'll read about it soon).

After the conversation about Chloe finished, Julia said, "I also talked to Ava not long after you left. I've told her you've decided that she's going to be kept on as a Liaison this time, even though she nearly caused so much harm to your test results, etc. She's going to come over Tuesday evening, for her punishment. I'm especially eager to get Ava very well trained. Not just because Carol enjoys playing with her..."

"{Giggle}. She IS fun. I'm looking forward to having her come down to have lunch with me and a group of my girls, the way you suggested."

"I thought you might. Ava should have a better attitude after Tuesday night, so I suggest you make have her come down Thursday or Friday. The main reasons I'm especially eager to train her is that I think she's very trainable, and because next year she'll be in Mark's grade, so will be very useful.

^-- "She's going to be punished for her attitude toward you, Mark. Specifically her pretending that she was fitter than she was, and delaying you because of her egotistical refusal to accept that you're much fitter and a much better lover than she'll ever be. She's coming over Tuesday soon after dinner, and she'll strip and lie face down on the bed in the study. You're going to thrash her with a belt. Her adoptive parents have never once smacked her, so a sound thrashing will have a big impact on her. It'll teach her that thinking she's even capable of equaling you is an error, and she'll vividly remember it for a very long time. When she makes mistakes in the future, which she's sure to, a small reminder of the pain and humiliation will quickly serve to correct her latest error."

"Umm, what do you mean by thrashing her? You mentioned a belt?"

"Yes. Thrash her with a belt. She'll be face down and naked, and you hit her, hard and repeatedly, from the top of her legs, mostly on her ass, and up her back."

"Umm, that sounds VERY painful. The flat of a belt stings."

"Correct. I want her to feel a lot of pain. She'll be sleeping the night in that bed, because she'll be too sore to move."

"I am REALLY not comfortable with that!"

"I know, that's one reason why I chose this punishment. I want her to see how upset you are. That'll be a good lesson for her too."

"But I DON'T want to do it at all! I know some people find that sort of thing sexy, but not me. I know I slapped Alexis' ass cheeks, but that was because it was good sex for her, not because I enjoyed doing so. And this sounds very, very unsexy."

"It IS unsexy. This is pure punishment; not sex. Let me put it this way. If on Tuesday evening you tell her, 'Bad girl, ' and lightly smack her on the palm once, how much disincentive is that going to give her for the future? More importantly, what lesson does that teach about her and your comparative importance? An extremely painful thrashing will drive home the lesson that she did a very, very bad thing, and will help convince her that you are far more important than her, which is exactly what we want her to think. We are making the punishment fit the magnitude of the crime we wish her to perceive. She knows this is happening and she's agreed to it. She knows she's unlikely to be able to drive home afterward, and she's bringing a change of clothes for school on Wednesday."