Normal disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons living or dead is coincidental. All persons depicted in sexual acts are at least 18 years of age and consenting adults. Please, enjoy yourself.
I would like to give my deepest thanks to Spector_Dugan and neuroparenthetical for their beta reading and editing skills. Huzzah!
My phone vibrated. I glanced down at it for a moment. The little red number on the icon meant that I had a new Facebook message. I don't use that messenger all that often, but I still have it, just like I assume most people do. I was busy working, so I ignored it for a while.
Now, generally, these messages are all the same: something along the lines of, 'Hey there, long-lost classmate from 25-plus years ago. Now that you're working at a fancy Las Vegas resort, could you hook me up with a free room, or show tickets, or get me on the VIP list for the club?' or some sort of Vegas perk so they can feel like a VIP or high roller.
Don't get me wrong; these requests don't bother me. I understand it. It is human nature to want to get free things and look like a big deal to friends and family. Generally, I can tell them that I'm just working in the IT division and don't have the pull to get them the things they want. That usually ends the discussion. Maybe they'll want to have a drink for old times' sake at some point. I've even taken a few of them up on that drink offer over the years. I generally end up buying, not because I feel bad, but because I can.
The truth is, I can get anyone I want basically anything I want at my hotel, or at one of the three other sister properties we own here in town. You see, I don't just work in Technology and Security; I am the Vice President of the entire division for four popular properties along the famous Las Vegas strip.
When I'd left my last position at a different casino, there had been an extensive bidding war between them and a two rival chains for my services. I had ended up with not only with a top-notch salary & benefits, but a two-bedroom luxury suite on site that had been converted into my personal apartment. I have access to the company car service any time I need it. For a single guy in his late forties with no other responsibilities, it really is a sweetheart of a deal.
So, you may ask, why don't I help all my old school friends? Well, if they were actual friends - even just casual ones - they'd probably have my cell phone number. They'd know I don't rely on social media to keep in touch. If said friend was an exception to that rule, then it certainly wouldn't have been the only message I'd received from them in the past six months.
I had set my lieutenant from the military up with a luxury suite for her anniversary. I had arranged front row seats to the Golden Knights season opener for the dungeon master from my high school D&D clan when he had come to town last fall. I do help my actual friends from time to time, but if I tried to set up every person I shared some real estate with 30 years ago, I'd have a lot less leverage than I do now.
The thing is, I've seen what happens to the ones who use up their asks for distant cousins or old classmates. They almost always end up paying out of pocket for damages, theft, or worse. I've seen colleagues on the hook for bail money and facing real-life criminal charges, not to mention dealing with pissed-off security staffers. This might be 'Vegas, Baby' and a party to most of the world, but it is also a multi-billion-dollar industry. On the corporate side, your reputation is a big part of your reality.
So, almost as an afterthought, I checked that message an hour and a half later. My eyes locked onto the screen and widened. It was Beth. Beth Anne Byers. If there was ever an exception I would make to all of my rules, she would be the one, no doubt.
Beth and I had grown up three doors down from each other. We'd been the best of friends in elementary school and still very close all the way through middle school. She had been the auburn-haired, green-eyed beauty with the killer smile. I'd been the gangly, awkward dork in the weird glasses that had trailed around her like a lost puppy dog. To say I'd had a crush on her in school would be a massive understatement. I had been borderline obsessed with Beth.
Her eyes had sparkled when she'd smiled and gave me butterflies. Her laugh had made my heart pound in my chest. I had yearned for that feeling daily, so I'd done my self-deprecating best to keep her smiling and laughing at all times.
Beth had hit puberty early and developed into quite the knockout in high school. She'd became a cheerleader and had been immensely popular. I had drifted more and more into nerdy computers, and role-playing dice games. I had faded into her social background. To her credit, she had still greeted me daily in the hallways and went out of her way to sit beside me in a few advanced classes - though normally when none of her inner circle of girlfriends had been around.
She had blossomed into a gorgeous creature. Beyond that amazing smile, she'd grown a wonderful set of tits (maybe a C or D cup? I'm terrible at judging that kind of thing.) and a nice plump, round ass. She'd been well-proportioned and had a bubbly personality to match. She checked all the boxes for basically every guy on campus from day one. She had dated the athletes and upper-class crowd, just as you'd expect.
Me? I'd never dated at all. Not once. Never held hands with anyone, not even a kiss. I'd never had that final growth spurt that most guys seem to get in high school. I had graduated almost the exact same short, wiry, skinny, nearsighted dork that I had begun high school as four years earlier.
Had I ever asked her out? Not on your life. I had wanted to; every day I saw her I'd wanted to. I just never had the guts, the nerve, or any self-confidence. I had been terrified of rejection because I hadn't been from that upper class group of friends she'd migrated to. We had lived in her neighborhood, but not because my family had been rich. Dad had inherited the house when his uncle died, well before I'd been born. There'd been no mortgage payment for my parents to navigate. If there had been one, we'd have been living across the tracks in a double-wide trailer, probably with a broken-down, rusted-out El Camino on blocks in the front yard.
So, I had worshiped her from afar, destined to remain in her friend zone. Had she known I'd had a crush on her? I'm not sure. She had treated me as a true friend. Despite my feelings for her, I truly had enjoyed her company. I had decided that I would rather keep that friendship with her than take the risk of losing her from my life. For four long years, all of my emotional energy had been focused on Beth Anne Byers.
Beth had gone out east to college right after graduation. Three weeks after I'd awkwardly hugged her neck in our cap and gowns, I'd been on a bus to basic training in San Antonio. That had been the plan for me, college paid for on Uncle Sam's dime.
I had signed on for a six-year bid in the Air Force. I would love to tell you that boot camp transformed me physically, and that I had grown into this muscular bad ass. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'd struggled with the physical training. I was smart and a fast learner - I could break down a rifle in record time after having read the manual only once. But running obstacles with one on my back? I had been the last one to finish the course every damn time.
I'd been way behind on my run times and couldn't do more than a single pull up without falling face-first into the mud. I had been destined to fail, to flunk out, to face yet another rejection. I'd learned the manual and regulations inside and out. I'd aced every test on paper, but I had known deep down that it would never be enough. I'd been ready to quit - to give up my sign-on bonus money and my shot at getting an education paid for.
My drill sergeant had pulled me aside the day before basic training was to end. He'd told me I was going to be pulled out of my platoon; they were paper whipping my physical drills so I could graduate. I was being sent across the country to join a communications squadron in Georgia immediately after graduation. I would be on a plane east that very night.
Georgia was where I had finally begun to develop just a little self-confidence, because I had taken to that role like a fish to water. Within six months, I had begun training experienced officers how to best use the technology at hand. I had started to make recommendations and had helped to develop next-level innovations - stuff the civilian market still hasn't seen decades later.
I had been promoted four times in the following three years, an almost unheard-of pace for that type of work. After a few years, I'd been shipped to another base just outside of Washington D.C. There, I had been given higher and higher levels of clearance. Suddenly, I had believed it when people called me smart. Colonels, Generals, Cabinet members, other very important people had all started coming to me to ask for my opinions. I had still been just 5'6 and 105 pounds dripping wet, but I had found my place in the world.
I'd begun dating occasionally in Georgia, usually set up by the wife or daughter of one of my officers. I'd had my first clumsy fuck in the back seat of an aging Honda Accord. Her name was Rhonda Jameson. She'd been a tag chaser and very aggressive from the moment we had met. Honestly, she'd scared me more than a little. However, she had wanted to have sex with me, and I had wanted to have sex too - just maybe not with her specifically. We'd had one follow up date before she had moved on to the next desperate soul.
After I had been shipped to D.C, I had met the college-age daughter of a colonel, a shy, slightly chubby blonde named Emily. We had dated off and on for a few months. She'd provided me with my first couple of enjoyable sexual encounters. Her father had soon retired, and they'd all moved home to Vermont. It hadn't been much in the way of experience, but it had at least been something.
My six-year commitment turned into twenty-two, but I had eventually retired from the military, despite some serious retention efforts by the good people in the Pentagon. I had worked with a couple of outside firms in my time there and had managed to leverage those contacts into some consulting jobs while I exhausted my GI Bill. Technology degree in hand, I finally I'd made the jump into the casino game (pun intended) and that had led me to Las Vegas.
