"Well honey, it's been fun," Jake said as he began to downshift and glide the big rig over to the shoulder. "Vegas is my turnaround. Best place for cheap food is a casino and they're as thick as fiddlers in hell in this town. Here."
He handed her a box of Trojans.
"Love is free now but the clap ain't. And here's something else I want you to have." He handed her a thin paperback book. She held it in her hand as if she'd never seen a book before.
"Zen and the Art of Archery... what this?" Victoria asked, bewildered.
"It's short. And it aint about archery. It won't take up much room in your rucksack. You can thank me later."
"I'll thank you now. It's probably the nicest thing anyone's ever given me," she exclaimed, giving him a kiss on the cheek. "I love it!"
She held the book to her breast and closed her eyes as if she could draw its mysterious knowledge directly into her bosom.
The big truck ground to a halt. Dusk was beginning to settle and the flashing neon from dozens of casinos began to blossom and blink.
Victoria stepped down onto the gravel shoulder as Jake leaned over to the open passenger side window.
"Remember - wherever you go, there you are," he said with a grin. "See ya!"
The big rig made a slow, wide u-turn and then, with a blast of his horn, rumbled away.
"Eenie, meenie, minie, moe, catch a hippie by the toe," she sang to herself, scanning the road ahead. One sign stood out among the rest. It was shaped like a painter's palette with the words Desert Inn splashed across it in large, elongated letters.
"I'm in the desert, so Desert Inn it is!" she announced to no one but herself.
***
Las Vegas, 1967.
Victoria walked into the foyer of the Desert Inn casino and stood there, taking it all in. Chandeliers, mirrors everywhere, the sounds of slot machine handles being pulled and released, ka-chunck, bells and buzzers, the insistent hum of an industrial AC system on full blast. In the casino itself she could see gaming tables and roulette wheels, surrounded by a throng of people of every shape, size, and color. Gliding among them like exotic fish, tight-skirted waitresses with big boobs popping out of push-up bras carried trays of free, watered down vodka tonics.
Even though Dolores had washed her miniskirt earlier than morning, Victorian was sweaty from riding all day in an un-air-conditioned truck. Her pussy juices had soaked her panties while she masturbated for Jake and actually ran down her inner thighs a bit. And she could feel some encrusted cum on her ass and hips from the threeway in Tucson. She lowered her shades and strode confidently into the casino proper where she knew the restrooms were.
Once in the women's room she found a sink in the corner and set her daypack on the floor. After splashing cold water on her face, she unzipped the front of the one-piece miniskirt until it fell away to the cold tiles at her feet. She stood there topless in her thin panties and saw a million of her in the full-length mirrors that surrounded her and covered the ceiling. With effort, though slight, she wiggled out of the tight panties.
There was no one in the restroom but there could be at any moment. Still, Victoria was mesmerized by what she saw in the mirror: a beautiful young woman with long, tan legs, shapely but almost athletic; tight rounded butt and firm thighs; thin waist with a hint of stomach bump curving up to her modestly sized breasts; soft shoulders on which fell her long straight brown hair, playfully disheveled. Pale tan lines outlined her thick dark bush and triangular area around her pink nipples. She turned and admired her form from every side.
Wetting some paper towels she began to give herself a sponge bath. She wiped off the sweat on her neck, upper chest, under her arms and breasts. She wetted a fresh paper towel and, placing one foot on the counter, began to work between her legs. After a few wipes, however, the sensation on her clit just began to make her wet again.
With a sigh she hopped up on the counter and swung one leg over the sink so she could splash water on her pussy. As the stream of water warmed up she examined her labia in the mirror. They were a slightly darker pink than the pinkness inside the lips. With her thumb and index finger she spread the lips wider. She could just make out the small dark opening to her vagina and at the top of the slit, the small round button of her clit. The casino's restroom mirror was giving her the best look at her sex she'd ever had. She was fascinated.
So this was where it all happened. She probed the folds of her inner lips and felt them slowly dampening with a slick, viscous liquid. It was thrilling to think she could be discovered at any second. She slipped the tip of a finger into her cunt hole. Her soft labia closed around it. She pushed her finger in deeper and curled it upward to stroke the top of her vaginal opening. Glancing up to her breasts in the mirror she confirmed what her senses were reporting: the nipples on her B cup breasts were hard and pointing slightly upward.
She liked the fact that her tits pointed up. Perky was what Lydia in gym class called them. She didn't mind the beauty mark on the underside of her right breast, or that the left breast was slightly bigger; she'd frequently noticed the same thing in the breasts of the other girls in the gym shower, no matter how voluptuously big or firm and tiny her classmate's breasts were.
Of course Susie O. had perfect tits. Just like the Playboy centerfold they'd giggled over at the sleepover, finding it under the mattress of Susie's older brother Kent, then taking off their own t-shirts and bras to compare notes. Susie's were big, firm, and bouncy and identically perfect. Kim's were small like Victoria's but with big puffy nipples. Jean's were the biggest and hung lower than she liked, but they all agreed that boys didn't really care as long as the girls let them touch. Then they noticed the window blinds were open and when Susie went to close them, she saw that someone was looking through a gap in the blinds in the next door neighbor's window. "Kent's next door visiting his friend Andy, let's give them a show," Kim said, and even though it was her brother over there, Susie agreed. They kept the blinds open and made exaggerated movements to stand in front of the window and push their breasts right up to each other, nipple to nipple, giggling. Jean and Kim stripped down to their panties and Victoria followed suit, going so far as to pull the front of their underwear down to the top of their bushes, letting a little pussy hair peek over. They turned around with their butts to the window and pulled their panties down lower to show their butts. "Bend lower," Susie commanded, "so they can see your pussy slots!" Then Susie took the cord that controlled the blinds and counted down, one, two, three. On three the girls turned around and after only a moment of beaver shots, Susie closed the blinds as they all fell to the floor laughing.
Victoria couldn't take her eyes off Susie's magnificent breasts that night. She wanted to touch them but of course couldn't admit that. She still liked to think about Susie's tits when she caressed her own, as she was doing now.
She heard the outer door to the restroom open, and climbed off the counter. Still naked, she stood at the sink, washing her hands as if it was the most natural thing in the world to be naked in the casino's women's room. A middle-aged woman in a short, tight, black skirt and high heels clicked by her and entered a stall, smiling but saying nothing.
Victoria finished her sponge bath and fished some clothes out of her bag, a long, flowing Indian print skirt and a white peasant blouse, which she pulled on over her naked body. No panties and since she didn't currently own a bra, braless. The top three buttons of the blouse were open, showing her chest freckles and just a bit more than a hint of the inside curve of her breasts. She brushed her hair, popped a white, then walked out toward the tables just as an elderly gray-haired woman came in. Victoria smiled.
She approached one of the stacked cocktail waitresses who was more tanned as she was. "I left my key in my room. Is there some place I can leave my bag while I'm at the tables?" she asked innocently.
"Of course, I'll put it behind the front desk for you," the waitress said, smiling knowingly. "Here's your complimentary starter package and thank you for choosing the Desert Inn."
In the plastic bag was a color brochure, one meal ticket, three drink tickets, and five red $5 chips.
Victoria strolled among the tables until she'd lost sight of the waitress. She could turn in the chips for $25, get a fee meal, and maybe barter the drink tickets to a wino for a couple of bucks. She began to head toward the exit.
Suddenly she felt a hand on her upper arm, firmly guiding her over to the side of the room. Busted.
"You have to play your chips," the chunky middle-aged man in loud Hawaiian shirt said. He was wearing khaki cargo shorts, shades, and a straw fedora just a little too small.
"Fuck that, they gave them to me," Victoria said, shaking her arm loose.
"If you show up at the window with five red chips they're going to ask to see your room key, and we both know there's no key."
"Who the fuck are you?"
"A friend."
"Well I don't know how to play any of this shit."
"Blackjack. It's the only game you have even a cunt hair's chance of winning. There's only two things you need to know: always split aces and eights, and quit while you're ahead."
"I don't even know what that means - the aces and eights part.
The man sighed. "Okay, here's the deal. You're going to get some cards and the dealer will get some cards. You want to get as close to 21 as you can without going over. So be careful. The dealer has to draw a card at 16 but you don't. That's your advantage. So play it safe. And remember, there's a shitload of face cards in the deck, so just assume that the next card will always count as ten."
"Will you play with me?" she asked.
"No darlin', I'm on duty. Security. I'm here to keep the riff-raff out," he grinned.
"You're awfully kind. I wish there was some way I could repay you," she replied, trying to sound sexy. "Something that I can do for you on my knees?"
