The action figures were shoved in the small trash can in the master bathroom. Even the collectible ones still in the original packaging.
Kerrie didn’t disturb Evan, it wouldn’t have done any good.
She took her phone, walked down the hallway of their apartment building, into the laundry room.
Made a few phone calls.
Spoke to Brenda last.
“You’re the cutest, Kerr,” Brenda told her. “Be careful, but yeah, do it. If it fails, at least you’ll have a good story to tell when Evan’s older.”
Kerrie returned to the apartment and got ready, trembling just a little, more excitement than real nerves.
The outfit she picked out didn’t really fit well anymore, but after further inspection in the mirror that probably worked in her favor. She threw a Chevy windbreaker over what she was wearing and called to her son.
“Ev, I’m gonna run into town...brief, impromptu... business meeting.”
“Whatever,” Evan said.
At a stoplight near the hotel, she ditched the windbreaker, throwing it in the backseat. She parked valet because the real nerves began to kick in and if she had to circle for a parking space she might chicken out.
The hotel was attached to the Casino and the nightclub-- Eddy assured her that they’d be in the Nightclub, Electric Vine---was on the third floor.
She wandered in, trying to look around casually even though she felt obsessively intent.
After 20 minutes of wandering and listening to what seemed like the same song, she didn’t see anyone who even remotely fit what she was looking for.
Kerrie stopped at a triangular bar near the dance floor and ordered a drink.
In the bar’s mirror she noticed some neon letters in the room’s back corner. She turned to read it without the aid of the mirror.
Vine & Dandy’s VIP Lounge.
If he was here…
Kerrie took two long pulls on her drink through a dayglo straw and left the rest on the bar.
She began to march straight back toward the sign, caught herself, slowed and sauntered. At least she hoped it was a saunter.
A huge but gentle hand at the end of a crimson dress shirt with the Casino monogram stopped her.
Fifty-dollar cover.
She pulled her plastic from her small, shiny clutch and hoped the grimace she was thinking didn’t show.
A darkened, mirrored hallway cut to her right.
What sounded like the same song from the other room was playing.
What could possibly be worth fifty bucks cover?
She walked through the small entrance to the right. It opened on a more intimate room, with a multi-tiered dancefloor.
Scantily clad dancers of both sexes gyrated on spinning pedestals.
Kerrie looked at her own cleavage.
She hadn’t thought about that part of her anatomy in years, but it looked ok to her.
To her left was a man about 6’4’ heavily muscled.
Another bouncer?
No crimson shirt, nothing to identify him as belonging to the casino.
To her right, a bank of high-backed booths, like vertical clamshells.
More huge men, drinking, in some cases directly from vodka bottles.
Kerrie smiled, gave herself a brief pep talk, a more guttural version of the one she used to give herself before real estate exams.
To the far right of one of the clamshell booths was Quasar. There was a stunning woman in the booth, no older than 24, but she was separated from Quasar by another mountainous man...Nebula.
Kerrie made her way over.
She wasn’t gonna putz around. She was a master salesperson, but she knew she was about to try to sell a man on something he had access to an abundance of.
Quasar invited her to sit. A great start, she thought.
Please call him Cortez, his given name.
Jeezus is he polite, Kerrie thought, briefly pondering that her new friend might not even be straight. His bio said single. His given profession wasn’t known for openly gay men.
Kerrie broached the topic of sex.
Cortez assured her that was something he was interested in in a general way.
Kerrie broached the topic of sex with her.
Cortez wasn’t over the moon, but was certainly interested and even flattered.
He would prefer to be discreet, he said.
Kerrie assured him that she would prefer that too.
For the first time, she wondered what it would be like for someone as relatively petite as she was to have sex with a man as huge as Cortez.
It could be amazing, she figured. It could also be really uncomfortable.
With the assistance of one of the Casino concierges, a high-level VIP concierge named Jean- Yves, a guy Cortez referred to as a “Fixer”, they were escorted to Kerrie’s car in an underground garage.
“You’re sure you’ll be more comfortable with me at your own residence?” Cortez asked.
“Very much so,” Kerrie said.
They continued their conversation as Kerrie drove along the riverfront.
She found Cortez to be intelligent and unfailingly polite.
After learning more about each other, he shifted his weight and rested his massive hand on her knee.
“May I inquire what you find so fascinating about me, in particular? Again, I’m flattered, but I have to admit to being curious what it is about me that commanded your attention and energy.”
Kerrie thought about pulling over to answer the young man’s question. She thought better of it, instead accelerating somewhat.
She turned and looked in Cortez’s eyes.
She saw a sincerity, a sparkle, that certainly could never be found in the face of an action figure.
The honesty his sincerity commanded also brought with it the harsh reality of her maternal intellect.
“Well, Quasar,” she said, purposely choosing his wrestling name, “you commanded my twelve-year-old son’s attention first. And that attention led him to waiting for five hours outside the convention center today. His cheeks are sunburnt like he was a nearby eyewitness to a nuclear test on the Bikini atoll. And when he got close enough to see you, to almost reach out and touch you, the event drew to a close before he could get an autograph and a photo. And he’s devastated. He threw his beloved action figures--your action figures--in the trash. I would like you to get them out of my trash receptacle, and reacquaint him with them if you don’t mind.”
Cortez Aramanda silently considered the new information. After a quarter-mile of silence, he said,
“I’d be happy to do that, Kerrie.”
“Thank you,” Kerrie said.
“I admire your motherly tenacity,” Cortez added, “but I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you I was looking forward to an intimate evening with you.”
Kerrie hit her blinker, almost too hard, and got off at the exit to her apartment.
“When I left my place tonight, Cortez, you couldn’t have paid me a thousand bucks to kiss you on the cheek. However, you are more than I expected. I would say an intimate evening at some point in the future is not probable, but also not entirely out of the question.”
Cortez smiled with a glow of boyish intrigue and mischief.
Kerrie smiled back.
“There’s no guarantee Evan forgives you,” she said. “I’ll be interested to see how you deal with an unscripted outcome.”
***
Photo by Steve Smith on Unsplash
You stuck the suplex ending, nice.