Shell Game

"Jordan. I said my name is Jordan." He said it expectantly, making it obvious that he wanted a name from me. I guessed I could give him something, as he'd paid for the beer and already had a hand high up on my inner thigh. We were sitting in a corner booth in shadows at the BackEntry Bar in Las Vegas, on South 8th street, just off Fremont. I just didn't have to give him my real name.

I was keeping this to the older downtown area of the city. It was April Fool's Day at the bar, and tricks were being played all around me—pratfalls taken when chairs were pulled away and fake punches being made. It was all kind of lame, though, with guys only going through the motions. If the room cheered a joke being played, the jokester got a free drink. There was tricking going on, but it was more serious than joking—guys were here to make other guys, and some guys were here to pull tricks of a sexual kind. Other guys, including me.

"Uh, Rocky. I'm Rocky. Rocky Holtz," I answered. Might as well give him the whole name, as it wasn't really mine and I was planning to ditch that identity anyway. I hadn't been paying close attention to what Jordan said—something about the Midwest and what happening in Las Vegas staying in Las Vegas. He wasn't bad looking. Maybe in his early forties. The cut of the suit was fine—he had money—and he filled it out OK. That it was a suit rather than something a lot more casual marked him as out-of-town businessman straight out of the conference room. Obviously, he'd been to a gym a few times, just not quite often enough. Sandy-colored hair, cut well, and a slightly florid complexion. But that might be from the excitement of being here, on the brink of doing what he dreamed about, and not being home in the Midwest, or wherever he was from, screwing his wife and wishing he was laying a Chippendales dancer.

That's where I came in. I was a Chippendales dancer, at Salvitori Giordano's Chippendales on Fremont Club. Sal's the reason I was here at the BackEntry Bar instead, though. He sent me here. Sal was Italian—Sicilian, to be precise—from a New Jersey family and with a male strip club in Las Vegas. You didn't have to be a genius to figure out what his connections were or why I'd do what he wanted me to do. And he wanted me to be here, so I was here.

I turned a smile on Jordan and spread my legs. He absorbed the permission I was giving him and moved his hand under the table to fondle my basket. So, at least he had some experience in this. It wouldn't be long, I thought, before he was under the table and sucking me off. It wouldn't be the first time—or particularly unusual—for the BackEntry Bar. This was a gay bar that wasn't a very big step above a biker bar but was a favorite hookup venue for slumming out-of-towners. That would be middle-aged guys like Jordan who didn't get this sort of thrill wherever they came from. Guys who wanted something a little a bit wild to take home from Vegas. Jordan didn't seem to be hyperventilating over possibilities, so I figured he'd done this before and would go through if living his dream if I let him.

We leaned our faces into each other and went into a kiss, the purpose of which was to establish that, for free beer, I'd let Jordan grope me and even go under the table, if he wanted.

I wasn't here for Jordan—or for a hookup with anyone like Jordan, though.

After the kiss, my attention went back to the bar, behind which the bar's owner, Chuck Somethingorother, was doling out drinks. There were some guys at the bar, including a cute young Italian guy who was feeling up a bruiser who had just bought the young guy a drink and, at the end of the bar, a regular who had taken up station with a shell game he was betting on with anyone who might stand for his drinks because they weren't quick enough to follow his sleight of hand. He was good with the cups, fooling guys with where the small cowrie shell had wound up five out of six times. I think maybe Chuck brought him in just to add to the lame April Fool's Day party atmosphere he was pushing tonight.

As I watched the shell game guy win another drink, Chuck left the bar and came over to our table.

"I see you've graced us with your presence, Rocky," he said as he reached the table. I'd told him when I came in tonight that for tonight and tonight only I would be Rocky, and he had both asked no questions and remembered. That was what a twenty had bought me. "It's getting dull in here and needs a jump start. Give us a dance for fifty bucks?" I'd also told him I was up to give a dance tonight if he went along with my name change.

"I don't know," I answered, turning my face to the Midwesterner. "You think you can manage without me for a dance set, Jordan?"

"You're going to dance the pole on the stage?" he asked, his tongue nearly wagging.

"If you and Chuck want me to," I answered.

"Fuck, yes, I want to see that," Jordan answered, his eyes bugging out. "And maybe after . . ."

"You give a good blow job, Jordan?" I asked and gave him a smile. I certainly didn't plan on blowing him.

He looked surprised and then gave me a big smile.

"Maybe if you like my dance, I'll let you find out what I'm not going to show everyone in the dance. If you're into playing with a dancer's cock."

"I'd like that," he said.

I turned to Chuck. "So, turn on the music, and I'll do a turn on the pole," I said, as I stood and took my shirt off, leaving my red suspenders in place. Jordan sucked in air and Chuck went off and made the music turn to a bump and grind rhythm.

For the next fifteen minutes, the lights were dimmed, a spot came up on the small platform stage with a pole in the middle of it, and I did a Chippendales routine and strip down on the pole, making an issue of unbuckling the red suspenders and stripping off the trousers and dancing the pole in red bikini briefs and mid-top combat boots.

All attention in the room was riveted on me—and it was mostly for the attention to my well-honed body that I danced. Jordan gawked, the shell game guy stopped fleecing the customers to gaze, and the cute little Italian at the bar let the bruiser wrap himself around him and fondle his body as they both watched me. The Italian cutie was focused on me, not the guy groping him—and that's the way I wanted it.

At the end of the set, I draped my trousers and suspenders over my arm and walked back to my table. Jordan, of course, was still there. He had his dong out, I could see when I slid into the booth, and was stroking himself.

"That was phenomenal," he murmured, as I settled in the booth. His voice was choked up.

"You want to take care of yourself or take care of me?" I asked. "The dancing made me hard."

Jordan didn't require an engraved invitation. He slipped under the table in the darkness, and I spread my legs, as he pulled the waistband of the bikini briefs under my balls, took my hard cock in his mouth, and gave me head—not expert, but good enough. I sat there and watched the shell game artist going back to his business at the end of the bar and the bruiser heat the Italian kid up farther down the bar.

It didn't take Jordan long to suck me off and clean my cock with his tongue. He came up for air and a kiss, and I smiled at him and said, "Thanks, sport, it's been a thrill." Then I rolled out of the booth and pulled my trousers back on. I put the suspenders in place but tucked my shirt into the back of my trousers rather than putting that back on. Ignoring the Midwesterner's surprised expression, I walked over by the bar and to the back of the room, to where there was a doorway guarded by a beaded curtain.

The bruiser and the Italian kid had pulled themselves away from the bar and, while Jordan was sucking me off, I saw the bruiser guide the young, smaller, dark-haired honey through the beaded curtain.

I didn't stop at the bar but continued to the doorway and positioned myself so that I could view the hallway beyond through the beaded chains of the curtain. I smoked a cigarette and held there as if I was just taking a bored breather, when, in fact, I was watching the bruiser get his dick polished as he leaned against a wall in the dark corridor to the back of the bar.

The Italian honey was on his knees giving the bruiser an expert blow job. The bruiser was in ecstasy, his head arched back, his hips thrust forward, his hands guiding the kid's head with fingers run into the Italian's luxurious black, curly locks, and his eyes closed.

His eyes being closed was the important part, I could see, because while the Italian kid gave him head I could also see that the cutie was rummaging around in the trousers puddled around the bruiser's ankles, extracting the man's wallet, and helping himself to a credit card.

I wasn't surprised. Giving a little smile, I pulled away from the doorway and went back to the bar. There, Chuck pulled fifty dollars out of his cash register and gave it to me, with a thanks for the dance. He also stood me a beer.

When the bruiser and the Italian kid came back out through the beaded curtain, the kid came to the bar and the bruiser, having gotten what he wanted—but having given more than he had realized he had—breezed right by me and out into the night. I turned my attention to the shell game operator, while sensing the Italian kid coming up to the bar next to me—just as I wanted him to.

I had planned to go back to Jordan and say something nice to him and apologize for leaving him so abruptly—although I couldn't say it was because I was on a surveillance job. But he was gone. No problem, though—he'd gotten the fantasy of sucking off a Chippendales dancer for just the cost of a beer. It was a memory he no doubt would savor even if he couldn't brag about it to anyone back in Kansas or Oklahoma, or wherever he came from. And I'd gotten needed camouflage. Getting my rocks off wasn't too bad, either. Jordan had a soft mouth and knew what he was doing.

I went two rounds with the shell game and won both times. Then I turned back to the bar and to the Italian kid standing next to me, seeming like I'd just seen he was there.

"You're really good at that game," he said to me. Good. He'd broken the conversation first. Maybe he'd remembered he'd initiated it. "And you're a really great dancer too. Gorgeous body. Really put me in the mood."

"I'm good at a lot of things. You're a real honey too. I saw some what you were doing in sucking that guy off in the hall behind the bar. You've got really good technique." I didn't mention that I'd seen him pickpocket his mark too, although it was fine with me if he wondered about that. "I wouldn't mind going a round with you myself."

"Pretty direct, aren't you?" the Italian kid said, but he didn't back off.

"There's no need to be coy when I see something I like," I said. "You've seen me move nearly naked, and I think you'd like the rest. Did you just come in here to suck guys off or did you want more of a hookup? I've got a room close by at the Super 8 Motel on South Las Vegas Boulevard. If you want to be banged good tonight, I'm your guy."

"Just like that?" the Italian cutie asked, smiling.

"Just like that. I'm Rocky."

"I'm Rick," he answered. "Let's go see how super you can be in the Super 8."

I smiled. No, you're not Rick, you're Nick, I thought. But I wouldn't let on that I knew exactly who he was and had been sent to keep him out of trouble—as much to keep him out of jail for trouble he got himself into as trouble done to him. He was Nicolo Giordano, black sheep son of black sheep Salvitori of the black sheep Giordano crime family. Sal, who had my balls in a vice for schemes of his I'd been involved in in a minor way, was back in New Jersey for a confab this first weekend of April, and he needed a babysitter—a minder from a far, he'd said, so that Nick didn't know he was being herded—for his wayward son. I'd worked stakeouts for a private eye before going with his Chippendales club—and other unmentionable jobs, including male escort. Sal's kid wasn't just a pickpocket; he also was addicted to dick. So I guess I was a natural for Sal to lean on.

I'm sure that fucking Nick Giordano, who was sex on wheels, was not within Sal's definition of protecting his son from harm, and from himself, but I had plans and orders Sal didn't know about. Fucking Sal figuratively was part of the overall plan, but fucking the stuffing out of his gorgeous and naughty son literally was going to be my own personal reward.

* * * *

"You danced the pole so well; is that what you are, a club dancer?"

"Excuse me?" I asked. My attention had been arrested by the customer sitting at the counter at the North Nellis Boulevard IHOP belting out an "April Fools" to the counter guy, a young, good-looking guy with muscles who wasn't looking all that pleased now as he stood with an empty sugar container in his hand and a small mountain of sugar on the countertop.

"Hey, he's good looking, but you're with me now," Nick said, as he saw me eyeballing the counter guy.

That's it, Nick, I thought. Keep yourself lusting after me.

"I asked if you were a professional pole dancer—and, if so, I might could get you hooked up with my father. He's got a Chippendales revue and a club, and you look like you'd fit right in."

I turned my attention back on Nick. "Naw, I'm from L.A. I Run a surfer supplies shop down near Venice Beach," I answered. "I'm just in Vegas for a couple of days of gambling." I didn't want him to know that I was all too familiar with what businesses his father, Sal, ran.

We hadn't gone straight to the Super 8 Motel from the BackEntry Bar. There was something I wanted Nick to do for me before we got hot and heavy, if he'd cooperate. "You hungry?" I had asked, as we left the BackEntry and climbed into the snazzy vintage Mustang convertible I'd heisted from a valet lot at the Golden Nugget Hotel and Casino earlier in the evening. I hoped to have everything done, the Mustang abandoned, and my own Camaro fetched from the Plaza before the owner of the Mustang missed it. "You will want to have strength for the workout I plan to give you."

"Yes, I could eat," he'd said, so here we were at the all-night IHOP, feeding our faces and avoiding revealing too much about ourselves to each other. We were sitting across from each other in a booth, and my right foot was raised, the heel grinding itself in Nick's crotch. The young man didn't seem to mind. He had his knees pressed into my raised thigh and a hand under the table, holding my boot into his crotch.

A bell dinged and we both looked over to the counter. I saw that our orders had been pushed out onto the ledge into the kitchen. I noticed that, rather than look at the food, though, Nick's attention was going to the counter guy who was pulling the plates and about to bring them over to us. Other than the April Fools jokester sitting at the counter and now engrossed in his stack of pancakes, Nick and I were the only other patrons in the restaurant at that hour. The counter guy was, indeed, an eyeful, but if Nick had an interest there, he'd be disappointed. I could tell the counter guy was a submissive. He'd been coming on to me while he took our orders, and his signaling had been clear. As Nick was also obviously a submissive, he wasn't destined to get any satisfaction from the counter guy. Still, the guy was good-looking and muscled up enough that I could understand Nick's interest.

"Here you go, guys," he said as he reached us and set our plates down. "Is there anything else I can get you? Anything at all I can do for you? My name's Phil. Anything else you want, just whistle." He said it directly to me, giving me "that look."

I smiled back at him and tested him by raising my arm and cupping one of his butt cheeks with my hand. "Well, that's right accommodating of you, Phil. I'll be sure to whistle," I said.

Nick gave me an annoying look, but Phil didn't flinch, making no move to move away from my palming hand.

"I haven't seen you in here before," he said to me—only to me and showing no interest in moving away from my groping hand—"and I'm sure I would have remembered you. Fuckin-A I would have remembered you," he said, fluttering his eyelashes. He was a sweet blond, the kind who crowded up just below the stage at the Chippendales reviews and ate me up with their eyes in dreamland as I gyrated on the stage—the kind that I could break asunder when I fucked them and they moaned for it.

"I'm just here from L.A. to gamble a bit and to have a good time," I answered, giving him a wink and squeezing his butt cheek.

He nearly swooned for me right there and then. "This is the town to have a good time in all right," he answered.

"And here you are stuck in an all-night waffle house," I said.

"Not all night," Phil answered. "I get off at 3:00 a.m. And I have a small place of my own just over on Oakford."

"Good to know, Phil, good to know," I said, squeezing his butt cheek again. He'd offered himself and I'd given him a maybe. We'd see how the rest of the night went. I had no idea where or how far away Oakford was, but I was sure he'd be happy to take me there.

He reluctantly left us as a couple came into the restaurant, and I looked back at Nick across the table, who was giving me a scowl. I smiled blandly at him. His scowl turned into a surprised, "What the fuck?" exclamation as he looked down to discover that I'd switched our plates and he hadn't noticed.

I laughed, as I switched them back. "April fools," I said. "All that attention to the waiter was so you wouldn't notice me playing that on you, Rick." I almost stumbled and forgot to call him by the fake name he was using, but I remembered in time. "It's sleight of hand. Something it would be good for you to try out on your own. You look like a fast and flexible guy. You a flexible guy, Rick? Can I twist you around as I like?"

"I'm lookin' forward to it," he answered, forgetting about the attention I'd given the waiter, just as I intended he do.

The comment was thick with irony. It could be taken sexually, but it was also to check out whether he had figured out I'd seen him take the guy's credit card in the back corridor of the bar while he was giving the guy a blow job. But he apparently hadn't, as he did rise to that bait. He simply laughed and looked mollified on why I had given the waiter the attention I had. Of course, from the angle we were sitting at in the booth, he didn't see me feeling up the waiter's ass and the waiter enjoying that.

Seeing that he took the bait, I put out more bait when the waiter came back with the bill and my credit card—one in the name of Rocky Holtz—that I'd used to pay for our meal. I'd signaled with my eye that the folder went to Nick and didn't pick it up and sign the card until the waiter had left. Nick didn't notice the maneuver. I did leave a twenty-dollar tip, though when Nick wasn't looking, signaling that I was interested in giving him a riding lesson later.

When the waiter laid the leather folder down on the table, Nick started talking sexy to me in a lowered, husky voice, saying how horny he was and asking how far away the motel was. He was grinding my boot into his crotch under the table. I slipped only the receipt out of the folder, leaving the credit card. I'm sure Nick thought I did that inadvertently, but I didn't. I was laying the bait to see if he'd take it up.

He did.

As he distracted me—or thought he was—he slipped the credit card out of the folder and pocketed it. It all went down smoothly.

But what Nick didn't know was that it went down just as I had planned and hoped it would. I always could have fallen back on getting him to swipe the card at the motel room. But this way was so much more satisfying.

"Take me to the motel and ruin me," he whispered in a hoarse voice.

Oh, you have no idea, Nicolo Giordano, I thought.

* * * *