NINJAS AND NIGHTS OUT
The way of Shinobi demands the eye of the eagle, the stealth of the mongoose, the swiftness of the cheetah and the patience of the horse. Standing there in my black hooded keikogi and facemask, with my felt shoes and my crossed katana on my back, I was all of those things; as well as a little pissed off.
Assuming an air of profound oriental serenity, I watched the party going on around me with my eagle eye, particularly my wife Millie.
Millie had adopted the persona of the Catwoman for the evening. This was the brick shithouse version played by Halle Berry, not Julie Newmar's more sedate costume. Millie might be 42 years old. But she still had the body to totally rock a get-up like that.
She was laughing and talking with the four people who surrounded her. There were a couple of pirates, Mighty Thor and whatever Han Solo would look like if he was 40ish and overweight. The pirates were Jim and his wife Sue, who had arranged the party. The Thor, who was anything but MIGHTY, was our next door neighbor Sam. Han was a local cockhound named Bill.
Millie is hugely endowed in the boobs department and her skin-tight costume left very little to the imagination. Watching Bill devour her with his eyes made me wish that the nunchaku on my belt were real.
I helped her pick out that costume. I was pushing for Little Red Riding Hood, or perhaps something in the way of chain mail. But she insisted on going in an outfit more suited to the spirit of the event and her voluptuous body.
Simply put, Millie is stacked. As she has gotten into her 40s she has become a lot more liberated from her earlier body issues, when she was embarrassed by her big jugs. But her newer more secure self was a little unsettling to the likes of me.
I really didn't think that she realized the effect that her body, in that get-up, had on men; or then again perhaps she did.
As I watched she talked and danced and generally used her splendid curves to assemble an impressive array of male admirers.
~
I was not even supposed to be at the party. I had an event in Vegas for the weekend.
I couldn't get out of it because I was one of the featured speakers. Millie offered to go with me, since we are seldom apart.
But this costume party is a once a year event at our golf club. And our club is 300 yards up the street from our house. So we had both agreed that Millie should go to the party without me.
I got into Vegas midafternoon that Friday. I was met at McCarran by the publisher's rep. He had a favor to ask.
The guy who was supposed to keynote the entire event was held up in LA and couldn't make it until the next day. So would I be willing to switch to Friday night?
He knew that asking me to step out in front of 500 people with no preparation whatsoever was a huge imposition. But he swore that they would make it up to me with a penthouse at the Bellagio for the two nights of the conference.
And they were all sure that I could pull it off.
I was delighted; since it meant that I could exchange my ticket for a return the following morning and still join Millie at the party. And spending one night living like a plutocrat was just icing on the cake.
I told him to forget about the second night and I would see him at 7:00.
There was still plenty of time before the show and so I stopped at Star Costumes and picked up a snazzy ninja outfit for tomorrow night. I have always seen myself as the stealthy assassin type, rather than the big man on campus Samurai anyhow.
I was going to call Millie as soon as I got checked in and tell her that I would make it back in time for the party. But I got caught up prepping for the presentation and time got away from me.
The presentation itself went off exactly the way I wanted it to. I am a closet stand-up comic and I don't think I have done a good job unless the audience is rolling in the aisles. I pegged the laugh-o-meter several times that night and so when I finished up I was feeling very full of myself.
The next stop is always the publisher's party. I was leaning on a wall doing what I like to do, which is observing the interplay among the guests. I was sipping my second Johnny Walker Blue and watching numerous long-term affairs and one-night-stands getting off the ground when I heard a sultry voice say, "You should have been in comedy".
I turned to see who this extremely perceptive individual was, and locked onto the most smoking hot pair of emerald eyes that I had ever beheld.
And the face and figure attached to those eyes would have made Jessica Rabbit look dowdy.
I choked on my drink but managed a "thank you" as I was wiping $95 a shot scotch off of my lapels. She looked amused.
She was one of those women whose figure can best be described as two watermelons attached to a broomstick. And she knew what her assets were, since the expensive turquoise dress that matched the red hair was cut in a way that made me suspect she was using super-glue to preserve her modesty.
I said just to make conversation, "I assume you were at the talk". She said that she was indeed and then proceeded to point out 10 fallacies in my logic, which rather than pissing me off intrigued me.
I am a sucker for smart women.
I said, "Perhaps you would like to argue about this someplace where the noise is a little less distracting."
She gave me a look like it was about time I asked and said, "Lead the way." I strolled over to the Lilly bar with her sashaying along next to me, chattering about gambling mentalities.
Once we got ourselves situated in a nice little corner booth I said, "You know who I am. So who are you?"
It turned out that she was a 28 year old grad student at UNLV getting a PhD in English.
I didn't editorialize about the cost-benefit of that choice, since I didn't want to discourage her. I also didn't ask the obvious question, which was, "How did you manage to get into the event?" because it was obvious that she was wearing her credentials.
I marveled at the male mind and the women who take advantage of it.
