His Biggest Bet

"I've got a bet for you," a man named Jake said with a smirk. "A cut of the cards for your wife for the night." I wasn't sure I heard right, but when I saw the distressed

look on her face, the look that said, "So, you are a gambler, you going to take his bet, or not, money bags?" I got my back up and stared at him, totally pissed that he'd challenge me like that, throwing out such an outrageous bet.

"So what are you going to do, big shot, take his dare or slink off in the night?" my wife said, backing him up on his test of my commitment to what I had just said, that I would take any bet any of these mugs could put on the table. I stared at her, knocked flat by my own wife joining sides with my opponents.

He held up the deck of cards. "You said your luck was golden, that you could match any bet we could put up. Well, here is your bet. Come on and take it if you dare," the man named Jake taunted. I looked at the cards and then at my wife.

"You dare to take his challenge? You would gamble a piece of my ass on the cut of a deck of cards. Are you so much of a gambler that you cannot resist a bet, even if it is for your wife?" she said with sadness in her eyes, tears beginning to flow.

It was true. I was so much a gambler that I could never resist a bet. My hands shook with emotion over being given a bet they thought I wouldn't take. I would bet on which bird would fly off the telephone line first. I would take a bet over which leaf would fall first from the tree. I was addicted to gambling and these men knew it, my friends had tried to help me out of it. But now I had been given a bet my friends hoped I wouldn't take. It came down to self control I didn't know if I had.

"Well,?" Jake said defiantly. "Is it a bet?" I looked at Claire and there was pleading in her eyes. Unhappy tears were streaming down her face. She looked a question at me and put her hands out to her sides in a pleading gesture. I had gambled on money I didn't have that my children needed. I had bet money that had been set aside for emergencies, and lost.

When I was eighteen I had gambled away the money my dad had given me to put in the bank for the family because he was called away to work, and I lost it all on the street in a craps game in the heart of the city one late night in an ally behind a bar.

At twenty-three, without a home, money, or a job, I had lost money I didn't have and joined a card game near the docks where I had lost money they thought I had, then beat it out of me to make up for it. I was in the hospital for five days that I couldn't pay for and didn't have insurance.

My habitual gambling had ruined things throughout my life, and now I had been challenged with I bet I never should take. A night with my wife with the cut of the cards. I just had a lucky feeling, and although I knew there was a risk, a gigantic one, but that feeling just wouldn't go away. I felt lucky.

"Cut the fucking cards," I said defiantly, staring over at Jake as he held the deck above the table. My wife collapsed into a chair like someone had just knocked her legs out from under her and the wind out of her lungs, like a balloon with a sudden leak. Actually, I had done that, knocked the wind out of her, collapsed her into the chair. She looked at me, pained and hurt. She had stuck by me for years but never should have. I didn't deserve her forgiveness. I knew it, but I couldn't resist the bet.

We had been together two years when I hocked her wedding ring for a stake in a card game in town. I lost, then tried to get the ring back by pleading my case. I lost again. She threatened to leave me then, but she didn't, taking pity on me and telling me she didn't know why, but she loved me. I didn't know either.

When I took a card it was a five. Jake took a card, turned it so I could see. It was a seven. Claire stood, gave me a look that stuck in me like a dagger. "I might as well go off with Jake. You lost," she said sadly. Then Jake came over to her and said she didn't have to. It was just a fools bet. He was just kicking me in the ass. "He lost. He bet my pussy, and he lost it," she said angrily.

I did know what to say. I had felt lucky and that feeling usually works for me, at least it often does. Tonight it had let me down. I was confident I would win, but I lost her. I may have lost her for good, I realized. She stared daggers at me, totally pissed that I had risked her on the turn of a card.

By the rules of gambling she had to go with him. There was no choice. You had to honor your debt. I had bet her and I had lost. Her anger was apparent. She was honor bound to spend the night with him because I had gambled her and had lost. She would sleep with him now for sure, if only for spite.

There was nothing I could say. I could not protest because I was the one who had taken the bet. When she left with him I watched them go, and I said nothing. I simply watched her go off with the man I had risked her to against the turn of a card.

When she got in the car she didn't say a word. I did not speak as well. The drive to our house was totally quiet. Neither of us said a word. Once inside she turned to me. "You lost more than a bet," she said with fire in her eyes. "I'm moving in with Jake," she said with a defiance in her eyes. "I will be moving out in the morning. I will stay in the guest room tonight," she said.

There was nothing to say. She was right, I had risk her on a card and I didn't deserve to keep her. I just stood quietly watching her, feeling totally depressed, not having anything to say. "My night was fantastic, if you want to know," she said with her hands on her hips.

I watched her pack a suitcase, put some things in a trunk, and slip some toiletries into a bag, then I sat down and watched her dejectedly as she took some clothes out of the closet. "You staying there?" I asked.

"He treated me with respect. He said I didn't have to sleep with him, but I said a bet was a bet. He made love to me like a real man who loves women, not like someone who would take a chance on losing them on a bet, on a turn of a card."

I listened and did not answer. There was no reply necessary, none adequate, none that would do. I just watched her walk out the door.

It has been a month since she left and there have been five Gambler's Anonymous meetings since the night she left. I have taken the pledge, promised myself I would not gamble away what I love, those I don't want to lose. I have lost almost everything, but I have promised myself it would end here. Like alcoholics, we gamblers must live day to day. We are never cured, we are just one bet away from causing misery and damage.

Yes, I have met a lady who only knows me as a former gambler, and I am determined to keep it that way. I have been working with a hypnotist and trying to control my addiction. I haven't taken a bet, put money on a horse, or sat down at a card table in two whole months. That has to be some kind of record.