The Bar at the smallish hotel off the casino strip was crowded that November night in 2002 as the conquering heroes entered, some with, valid I.D. some without. These football heroes were all in a boisterous mood. They had just had the best day they could possibly have had against the competition, they had played well and comported themselves like real athletes. Now they were ready to party in the hotel bar and they were dressed in their best clothes, which is to say, they were all in jeans and t-shirts. Accept for Fred, the sole Unitarian of the group, he was wearing a light blue short sleeve shirt with a clip on tie.
They were all members of the Timbuck Two County athletic League Dream Team. Which is to say that they were all attending local community colleges and participated in a sports collective, which allowed them to all play on the same team, even though they were from four different schools. None of them was over the age of twenty-three.
They were not very bright, they were probably destined for obscurity in one of its many forms later in life but tonight, this night, and they were at the top of their game. And as we shall see: they were here to kick up some dust.
Against one wall of the Romulus Room at the hotel was a table full of women in their forties and fifties here at this famous New Jersey casino city for a business seminar. All of them knew each other well, they were veterans of this place and this particular seminar. They had been through this time and time again but they enjoyed the annual break from their suburban professional lives and they enjoyed the time away from their husbands and families. Like the Football players they all had a sense that the usual rules didn't apply in a city like this, a city founded on greed and the things that went with it.
The ladies at the table took note of the young football players as they trooped into the bar and arrayed themselves against the plush purple velvet curtains and began behaving like...assholes. They drank beer exclusively and excessively. They talked too loud, they swore and they were insensitive to the room's ambiance, such as it was.
The athletes took note of the ladies. In fact the athletes goal was to take note of the ladies, that was why they were there. And largely they were disappointed. As conquering heroes (as they saw themselves) a part of their collective subconscious minds expected laurel wreaths from young single women. But no. The only people in the bar were the football team, six or eight guys sitting at the bar, the bartender (a woman, but not like the ones in the movies) and the seminar ladies at the corner table.
In the opinions of the football guys the ladies were old and....big. Big as to say overweight. Not excessively overweight, none of them were morbidly obese, but the football guys were raised on American culture and their ideal woman had a very thin waist. None of the ladies at the table had a thin waist.
As the night wore on, the football guys drank pitchers of beer and swore, and the woman at the table drank martinis and talked quietly. At around 11:00 P.M. one of the young men at that bar said something which was all too audible to everyone in the room, something with the term "fat old chicks" in the phrase. The offending phrase fell right into an unfortunately timed silence between the end of one song on the CD player and the beginning of the next.
Like all the loud pronouncements the guys at the bar were making, it was followed by a mild chorus of ascent from the amused guys. As so often happened in their lives, their own voices of approval were the only ones they ever got to hear, so they habitually seconded whatever any of them said to the group at large. Thus the unfortunate "Old fat chicks" was repeated back by some of the guys.
Over in the corner table, the six or eight older women looked at each other. Two of them, Vicki and Diana, as close as sisters but who only saw each other once a year at this conference, shared a more meaningful look at each other, then they turned and glared at the offending oaf at the bar, who pretended not to notice them.
In truth, Kevin was sorry he said what he had just said, his beer addled mind was hoping that the women in the corner hadn't really heard him. Kevin was 23 and a lifelong jock. He was going for his MBA and he was still stringing along his high school dreams of football glory, even though he knew he was never going to get onto any real sports team and that The Timbuck Two County All Star Team would probably be the pinnacle of his sports career. Still, as these things went, he thought he had done a proper job of following through on all that was expected of a high school football prodigy, now that high school was over and all.
Diana, one of the women, was from Kalamazoo Michigan, a full time auditor, a snappy dressing Virgo and more than twenty pounds over weight. She had been all of these things for at least twenty years. She had seen punks like this bunch come and go but for some reason she felt like this bunch should be taught a lesson. With her back against the left side edge of the booth she could see everything in the room and she hatched her plan right then and there. after she saw the look in her friend Vickie's eye, she decided she wasn't just going to let this last insult in a long long series of insults slip by unnoticed. She watched the drunken football guys and waited, judging her moment of action to the second.
When Kevin got up to take a piss, he told his pall Frank to "keep his fucking hands out of his bowl of peanuts" and walked into the hall, past the elevators to the men's room. On returning from the aromatic urinal and back into the hallway leading back to the bar, he saw Diana standing by the elevators, looking right at him. As he came abreast of the large chested woman in the nice looking black outfit, she said to him:
"You and your friends don't have any manners, you should learn to behave if you want to go out in public".
Kevin thought this was a bit harsh, but he had the idea in the back of his mind that he had this coming, that the unfortunate statement he had made back in the bar was too loud and too crass. Kevin made to say as much but Diana cut him off before he could get out more than three placating words.
" Don't tell me you hate big women and don't tell me you have everything that women want and don't tell me that you suppose we any of us at that table could give a rats ass about what you think about women."
Kevin was stunned to silence. Diana went on:
" You know how I know all this? I know because I am 45 years old and I have learned a thing or two about men"
She stepped closer and lowered her voice, looking Kevin right in the eye.
"Men are slaves to women, any woman. I can make you do anything that I want you to do and you can't stop me from doing it. I could make you stand on your head or sing the star spangled banner, because I have the magic power".
The expression on the still speechless Kevin's face began to change at that last bit. Partly it was the almost entire pitcher of Duff Light he had consumed, partly it was the mortification of being caught out by a woman that knew he had acted badly and that had the moral upper hand. But there was another part too. The look in that woman's eye. Kevin couldn't tell what she was getting at. It really didn't sound like she was leading up to the part where she would demand an apology and he would say something flippant like " If you want an apology, today is not your day" or some other shit like that. It always worked back home but Kevin was beginning to get the sense that he was out of his depth with this woman. His stock phrases and attitude were going to fail him here, and he was beginning to realize it.
Diana gave Kevin a significant look, right in the eye, and hit the "up" button on the elevator panel. She said to Kevin:
" When this elevator arrives, you and me are getting on it".
There was a pause while Kevin just looked at Diana, his mind still racing to come up with something to say. Kevin started to speak, it was going to be something cheerfully dismissive, but again Diana cut him off.
"If you get into the elevator with me, I will show you my tits".
The elevator want "Ding!" cheerfully and the doors opened with a smooth flourish. Diana backed into the elevator and, looking at Kevin, cupped her breasts suggestively and raised an eyebrow at Kevin.
Outside the elevator, Kevin began to speak again, but stopped and looked over his shoulder into the bar where his drunken buddies were throwing peanuts into each other's open mouths. Kevin drew in a breath and stepped into the elevator just as the door closed.
"What's your name champ"? Diana asked, her hands alongside her bosom.
"My name's Kevin"
The silence inside the elevator was uncomfortable, only the muzac version of "Girl From Epinema" could be heard.
"Well Kevin why don't you push button number eight?"
Kevin pushed number eight and turned back to look at Diana.
"You see Kevin? All I had to do was speak one sentence and you came right into the elevator and pushed the button for me. You're my slave."
