The exercise:
Today we play around with: the bet.
Beautiful day here, with the thermometer nudging 17 degrees during the early afternoon. We even had our first onion sprouting up through the dirt in the greenhouse already!
Mine:
The cards sat face-down on the table between us, partially obscured by my opponent's cigarette smoke. It was her turn to bet and she was eying my stack of chips as though it was a potential lover.
Check that. More like a guaranteed lover, who was already naked in her hotel room, just waiting for her to collect him. Or her, I suppose.
"What do you have left?" she asked, running a finger along the top of her much larger pile. "Two thousand?"
"Twenty-three hundred," I said, looking anywhere but at her cleavage.
"Hmm." Somehow she made it sound like a purr. I thought about dead babies.
"Bet or pass, my lady?" The dealer did not appear to share my qualms in regards to admiring the cut of my opponent's dress. Lucky prick.
"I think I shall make this fine young man," she said as she pushed twenty-three one hundred dollar chips into the pot, "go all the way in."
I took a moment to collect myself, hoping the haze of smoke in the room concealed my blushing cheeks. Then I added the remainder of my money to the pile in the middle of the table.
4 comments:
Your first vegetables are sprouting in February? That's pretty good going, I reckon it'll be a couple of months still over here. Until global warming makes us sub-tropical and I can grow my own pineapples....
Blame working in the gambling industry, but despite how well written your story is, I couldn't stop wondering what they were playing, as a pair of Aces isn't necessarily any good in varieties of poker like Texas Hold'em, nor Blackjack for that matter. Maybe I just got distracted by her cleavage too. No, wait, it was the dead babies.
The bet
"How much did you bet?" Dave looked worried.
"The college fund," said Vince.
"What, all of it?"
"Yep. No point gambling if you haven't got the cojones for it."
Dave looked both aghast and surprised at the same time, which ended up making him look like he needed the toilet.
"Where did you learn a word like cojones?" he said, surprise winning out over horror.
"Word-a-day toilet paper," said Vince. He smiled. "It's very frangible stuff."
"Yeah right," said Dave, staring at the table where the players were all sat. "Fine, you bet all of the money on a player. Who did you bet on? The woman with the shifty eyes? The man with the guide-dog?"
"There's no guide-dog at the table," said Vince, smiling a little. "There's no women either for that matter."
"Yeah, ok. So who did you bet on?"
"The one-armed guy," said Vince, pointing him out.
"Vince?" Dave's eyes were actually protuding from his face and he'd turned maroon. "Vince, it's effing SNAP!"
Okay I feel like a bag of beaten up moose droppings but I think it was all worth it. The hardwood floor looks great! If I do say so myself. One more room to go with the wood and I am done like dinner. (I think I will give myself a couple of days to recoup before tackling the last room though.) Anyway here is today's excercise.
The Bet
Suddenly today had turned from fantastic to craptastic in less time than it takes to have an aneurysm. Which believe me would be much more preferable then the situation I was in right now. One minute I was revelling in the joy of a being the best match stick girl in the world, the next, I was on the downward side of shit. My face must have shown it too as the big ass-wad sitting across from me started to grin. “The bet,” he said, “is that if you can’t eat that jar of cockroaches without chucking your cookies you can get up and walk out of here without anyone bothering you.” He was grinning ear to ear now showing off his green teeth, and what I could only assume had been his breakfast congealing in his beard. “But if you can’t, well let’s just say that you are going to be eating more cock than roach.” He chortled loudly as did the six other disgusting mountains of meat behind him.
I stared at the three hundred pounds of flatulent, crud infested, grease drenched, sorry excuse for a human being then reached into the jar and grabbed a handful of the skittering hard bodies. I shoved them into my mouth and started chewing.
“Selena, were going to play the cookie game. Here are the cards; it’s your turn to deal”.
“Okay Sabrina. Let’s see, that’s one card for you and one card for me. Then I flip one card over for you and flip one card over for me. Is that right Dad?”
“Yes Selena, that’s right. Now look at your cards. Remember you want to be as close to 21 as you can without going over. Picture cards are worth 10 and an ace can be used as 1 or 11. Ready?”
“Yes.” Both girls say simultaneously.
“Alright. Place your bets!”
“I bet one sugar cookie.” Sabrina says.
“Hum, okay Sabrina I’ll see your sugar cookie and raise you a chocolate chip.”
“Okay I’ll see your chocolate ……”
The front door opens. “It’s just me, I forgot my coupons.” Mom shouts from the foyer.
“Game over.” Dad whispers “Hurry up and eat the evidence.”
Greg - I like to think the aces are not a guarantee of victory, but that his chances are better than his opponent might have expected :)
Haha, I was not expecting that to be the game!
Iron Bess - congrats!
Eek. I would eat the bugs too.
Krystin - aw, super cute scene :D
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