From Riches to Rags (9 page)

Chapter Eight

Where Every One Knows Her Name ‒ Melinda
aka
Blackie Blackstone

Welcome to Vegas where what happens in Vegas apparently ruins my reputation. After the tongue lashing from that detective, I had tucked tail and ran back to my sanctuary, my condo on the Vegas stripe. I love Vegas as much for its glitz and glam as for its doors always being open policy of always being open on the strip. If I wanted to party at three in the morning, I could always find someone who wanted to party with me. And that’s exactly what I did.

I spread the word by sending a group text to my party club that I was back and looking to have some fun. By midnight, I had a condo full of people that I mostly didn’t know, getting high anyway they could. At these gatherings people always brought their own drugs, and I provided the music and alcohol. Oh, and a bathroom to throw up in.
And I thought this was fun?

“Blackie, want some crack?”

“What?” I looked up to see a petite girl with really large boobs, holding a straw out to me. She was sniffing and snorting as she sucked in the last dregs of white powder that lingered under her nose. At first I mistakenly thought she was offering me something else, and then I realized she meant the drugs. Surprisingly, I wasn’t disappointed.

I was never a heavy drug user, well, not after my father took away my allowance and threw me in rehab for the third time. That was over ten years ago, and I learned my lesson. I turned to alcohol instead, which supposedly was less addictive and of course, much easier to get.

I was already on my second Boilermaker when she offered to share her coke. When I told her no thanks, she grinned and said, “Oh goodie! More for me!” and sniffed up the other row of white powder.

As usually happens at my parties, I was surrounded by beautiful women with roaming hands and it felt good to be appreciated again. It felt like I was in control and could take what I wanted. The problem was that I didn’t want any of them. I’d had them all before. Then she walked in my door. The blond bombshell who dressed like Madonna and looked like Monroe. I was getting hot just looking at her.

I disentangled myself from the groping hands of my groupies and introduced myself to the blond. “You’re new around here, aren’t you? My name is Blackie Blackstone, welcome to my home.”

“Thank you, Blackie. I’ve heard a lot about these parties and thought I’d tag along with Rickie to see what it’s all about.”

Ricki was one of my usual guests. She wore men’s clothes and had a buzz cut. She usually came to my parties just to pick up the women I discarded, but she had her uses too. If one of my groupies got to emotional, she would take her off my hands. I have never been the type who likes clingy women, especially those who want to bare my children while they pick my pocket. I get a lot of those types at my parties.

“Well, remind me to thank Rickie for her good taste. How did she manage to latch onto a beautiful doll like you?” I think my Boilermaker just reached my brain. It’s going the wrong direction.

“She’s my cousin.”

“Oh yeah? So much the better. So, what shall I call you?”

“My name’s Suzanne but most folks just call me Suze.”

“That’s a lovely accent, Suze, are you from the south?”

“Yes, I’m from Little Rock.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been there. The closest I’ve gotten is Memphis. Ever been to Memphis?”

“Of course, many times. I practically lived on Beale Street when I was a younger, dancing to jazz music and eating barbeque until my veins ran red from the sauce. You won’t find any better barbeque than at The King’s BBQ on Beale. Have you ever eaten there?”

Oh my God, am I being punked?
I looked around to see if there was a hidden camera somewhere, and while everyone had their cellphones out taking pictures, none of them were pointed my way. Okay, if it’s not a joke, than I’m being punished by God, or fate or the devil himself.

“Were you looking at me, Blackie?” A half-clad, drunken floozy asked as she wobbled over to me.

“What? Who are you again?”

“It’s Bristol. We met in a bar, remember?”

I looked at her but what I heard come out of her mouth was
Chris is not one of your floozies that you pick up at a bar.
“What the fuck?”

“What is it, Blackie?” Rickie asked.

I was beginning to draw a crowd and I needed a cover story. “Oh uh, what the fuck, my glass is empty.”

Everyone laughed and instantly ten bottles of booze were shoved at my face. I took the bottle closest to me and chugged down a large quaintly of whiskey.

“Yeah, that’s much better!” I slurred, as I made my way back to the couch.

But I wasn’t drunk. Tipsy maybe, but not drunk yet. Again I thought I was being punished. I needed to be drunk to drown the apparitions haunting me.

I looked around at my so called friends, sloshing liquor on my lounge chair, breaking glasses, staining my carpet, and I decided that I needed some fresh air. I elbowed my way to the front entrance, half-heartedly smiling when someone pinched my butt, and opened the door. A quick look back assured me that no one had noticed me leaving. No one cared. Once out in the hallway, I punched the elevator. Just as it arrived, Suzanne came out the door and got in the car with me.

“Leaving so soon?” I asked her, not really caring that she was leaving my party, I was just making polite conversation.

“I could ask you the same thing. But yes, this was not my kind of party.”

“Oh, how so?”

“I don’t do drugs or lascivious sex.”

“Aw, are you a virgin?” I regretted the question the moment I asked it but my mouth had a will of its own at the moment.

“No, I am not. I have morals.”

I went for years without ever having met a person with morals and all of a sudden, I’m inundated with them. Well, I think George has morals, but he only grew a pair after Chris told me off.

“Suzanne, if I promise not to corrupt your morals, would you like to take a walk with me? I love to walk the strip at this hour and see how alive and festive it is.”

“I’d like that. I’ve never seen Vegas at night, except for the cab ride over here from Rickie’s place.”

We walked for a long while, talking mostly about morals, until we ended up at the Bellagio fountains. We were just in time to see the water show. Suzanne was awestruck by the water spectacle, and I was having lascivious thoughts about Suzanne. Now, I know this may be a crude way to say it, but I can’t walk the streets of Vegas with a Marilyn Monroe look-a-like on my arm, without getting a hard on. I’m only human after all, and besides, it’s in keeping with my reputation, or so I’ve been told. If they won’t accept that I’m trying to change my rep, then I might as well add to it. Tonight Suzanne will learn that morals aren’t everything, not when it comes to Blackie getting what she wants.

I got us a table at an exclusive cocktail lounge and ordered oysters, pomegranates, olives and red wine. The waiter looked at me knowingly, and I quietly tipped him extra to keep us supplied with every food aphrodisiac he could think of. I plied Suzanne with wine, food, and compliments, until I had her aroused and pulsating. Her reserve all but gone, I checked us into the Bellagio and ordered champagne and strawberries.

I took a plump, juicy strawberry and dipped it into a glass of champagne, before wrapping my lips around it, seductively biting into it, and suckling the tart taste of its juices. Suzanne moaned, although I don’t think she was aware of it. I smiled. She picked up a strawberry and dipped it into the champagne, and gingerly touched my lips with it. Again I suckled the exquisite fruit as I watched her eyes cloud with longing. I asked her if she trusted me, and she nodded shyly. Then I asked her to lean back and I unbuttoned her blouse, exhaling sharply when I saw her plump, rosy tipped, breasts spill out. I took another strawberry and dipped it in sugar this time. I ran a trail from under her lip, down her neck, between her breasts, and to her belly. Then I started at her stomach and began to lick the sugar off, moving up her abdomen, and between her breasts, causing her to shiver with heat. As I continued to lick the sugar, I squeezed the tip of her erect tit, and she gasped. I licked my way up to her lips, nibbling on her lower lip, and her groan of pleasure fanned the flames in the pit of my stomach. I parted her lips with my kiss, and my tongues penetrated her mouth, probing and sucking until she moaned again.

As I consumed her with my voracious overtures, I ran my hand down to her pants and unzipped them. I could feel the heat emanating up from between her legs and as I slipped my hand inside, I felt her lubrication. But she hesitated, and moved my hand from its just rewards. She was wavering, so I moved my lips to her breast and lightly bit the hard tip, as I wrapped my fingers deep into its flesh and kneaded all the pleasure from it I could. She groaned and arched her back, a clear indication to me that I was about to get what I wanted.

Suddenly I stopped and looked at her. As implausible as it might seem, I was about to take advantage of her and I realized that was wrong. I realized that I had morals too.

What? Why now, for God’s sake, when she’s ready to pop. I can’t do that to her.

“Damn it all to hell!” I jerked back, running my fingers through my bangs. “Shit, shit, shit!”

Suzanne opened her eyes and looked at me, “What’s wrong? Why did you stop, Blackie? Was it because I hesitated for a second, because really, it’s okay now.” She took my hand and put it back on her breasts, but after a soft squeeze, I removed it.

“I’m so sorry, Suzanne. I’m so sorry.” I had never apologized for sex before, because I had never cared whether it was the right thing to do or not. I just satisfied my needs and if they were satisfied also, so much the better. But when the realization hit me that what I had done to her was wrong, I wanted to cry. Not because it was wrong but because it frustrated my libido.

I took Suzanne’s hand in mind and looked her in the eyes. “Suzanne, you deserve better than someone who feeds you wine and aphrodisiacs, and whispers sweet nothings in your ear so you’ll go to bed with her, uh, I mean me.”

“Is that what you did, Blackie?” Suzanne asked as she pulled her hand away and set up, clutching her shirt together over her beautiful breasts.

“That’s what I did, and I’m not proud of it. I’m sorry that I couldn’t stop myself sooner.”

“I’m not. Just because I’m from Arkansas doesn’t make me a country bumpkin, you know. I knew what you were doing and I could have stopped myself, but I didn’t.”

“Then why did you move my hand away?”

“Because, I wanted to prolong the ecstasy I was feeling. I was afraid maybe you were one of those girls who liked to rush things.”

I looked at her in complete wonderment. I had totally misjudged everything about this girl.
What is wrong with me?
I already knew the answer, and it cut me to the quick. My ego once again led me down a path I didn’t want to take. And then I smiled because I realized, my morals just beat the shit out of my ego.

“Come on, let me get you home, Suzanne.”

Chapter Nine

Making Friends ‒ Christine Livingston
and
Norma Shelby

“Ms. Shelby, how are you this morning?”

Ever since my neighbor and I bonded over our kittens, I have tried to be more attentive to her needs. Every morning I have knocked on her door to collect her garbage and asked how she was doing. Her answer was always the same, her sciatica was acting up. I always showed concern, though I had no idea what a sciatica was. She seemed to appreciate it.

This morning, out of the blue, she invited me into her apartment. I felt privileged, because I knew, like me, she was afraid to trust just anyone.

“Oh my goodness.” I had walked back in time as if I walked into a museum. Her one bedroom apartment with its own kitchen was immaculately clean, although cluttered with antiques, and full of old world history.

I didn’t know where to look first. I ran my fingers over an old phone and she told me that it was a Belgium rotary telephone her parents used. With her calico kitten purring in her arms, she took me on a tour of some of the items, like the cutest little naked doll sitting on the bookcase. She called it a Kewpie Doll and said they were all the rage in back her day. Then she pointed out the framed baseball jersey, enclosed in glass, hanging over the bookcase. It was next to a faded movie poster of a young woman in a seductive pose, with her mouth wide open, screaming. The words,
Invaders from Pluto
were across the top and the star’s name in bold letters underneath the title. Almost as large as the star’s name, were the words
all talking picture.

She explained that the baseball uniform, which had
All American
curved across its chest, was the jersey her boyfriend wore. As if reliving the moment, she beamed with pride when she said that he played for the Memphis Chickasaws.

“My father would have loved that.” I said, explaining that my father was a baseball history buff, and used to tell me stories about the Chicks when I was very young.

She was pleased by that, and told me that she was eighteen when she married him, just before he went off to war. And then she seemed to go back to that time, when he was killed in Belgium at the Battle of the Bulge. Her eyes liquefied when she picked up a small portrait of a young man in uniform, and she kissed it so softly, and then put it back on the shelf.

“And the movie poster?” I asked, trying to bring her back to this room again.

“That’s me, dear, in my very first movie.”

I looked at the poster again and asked, “You’re Norma Shelby?”

“Yes, pretty saucy back in my day, wasn’t I?”

“How wonderful. I’m living next door to a movie star.”

“Child, that movie was made back in the forties, before you were born and I’m sure, even before your parents were born.”