In A Cold Sweat

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 had 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