Michele Bravo and the Mystery of Mr Largo, Ch 5

Chapter Four: The Ultimate Orgasm

Michele Bravo typed the final words of her story, then lay back against the pillows bunched up against her back, and laughed softly. It was too bad she had pleasured herself earlier, now she was feeling really hot.

Well, there was a way to relieve that tension, she thought ruefully.

Michele flipped open the lid of the briefcase and counted out 20 one-hundred dollar bills. Then she put the briefcase into the bathtub and threw a couple of towels over it, dampening one of them. She dampened another towel and arranged it artistically on the floor. She didn't really expect someone to break into her hotel room, but if they did...

As was her custom, Michele took the stairs down to the lobby, then walked into the casino and to the video roulette machine. It was past midnight, and the casino was busier – and louder – than ever. People were standing three deep around each station at the machine, but they appeared to be spectators only. When a dejected player bet his last five dollars on zero/double zero, and got up in disgust when he didn’t win, no one sat down. So Michele slid into the seat.

She fed four one-hundred dollar bills into the machine, then sat back and looked at the screen that showed the last twenty numbers spun. No patterns jumped out at her, so she folded her arms and let the croupier spin the wheel without her participation.

Now that she was playing with other people’s money, she intended to up her bets a little bit. What she really wanted to do was get the ultimate orgasm.

Michele had worked out her theory of sex and gambling long ago. Every gambler received a little orgasm every time he or she won a bet – won a hand at blackjack or got three of a kind on a one-armed bandit, even if they were playing on a penny machine and all they’d won was a dollar. Having that win recorded on the screen in front of your eyes gave you a little thrill of pleasure. That was one of the reasons why people gambled, more so than just to win money. It was the pleasure they received when they won the money that was the key.

She’d always preferred video roulette…for several reasons. Most importantly, of course, you could actually win on a regular basis at video roulette, if you practiced money management and used a bit of common sense, unlike every single other game at a casino in which the odds favored the house and 99% of the gamblers walked out as losers.

With roulette, if you bet one dollar straight up on a number and won, you got 36 dollars back. So much better than blackjack, where if you bet one dollar and won, you’d get another whole dollar back. Big deal. And the slot machines? Pure luck, most of it bad. Anyone who won a big jackpot on a slot machine was probably just breaking even from all the money they’d poured into it fruitlessly over the weeks, years or decades that they’d played it.

No, thought Michele. She didn't gamble for fun, she gambled to make money, and you could only do that at video roulette. And winning $36 on every dollar placed was orgasmic. You placed your bet, and then the croupier spun the wheel and all eyes were on that little white ball, zipping round and round the wheel. It was like foreplay, or the anticipating of coming, then the ball fell into its slot and, if you’d guessed right, or at least bet properly, you got that orgasm, as the money you’d won totaled up on the screen in front of you.

The ultimate orgasm would be the ultimate victory, one that she could work toward now if she wanted to. Michele had worked it out long ago, when she'd gone through a couple of hours sitting at a video roulette table waiting for her number patterns to show up.

The maximum of any one bet on a number was $99. So she could bet $99 straight up on a single number, and that win would net her $3564. (Yes, she had worked these numbers out exactly.) But there was more. $99 split between two numbers (a payout of $18) would net her $1782. $99 splitting each of the four adjacent numbers (if betting a number in the middle row, paid out $9) would net her an additional $7128. Then, betting $99 on each of the four corners of that number, would net her $3,564.

But there was more pleasure to come. Betting $99 on the row in which the number was ($12) would net her $1,118. Betting $99 by splitting two rows ($6) would net her $594. Of course every dollar had to be milked out of the win, so $99 on the appropriate column ($3), for $297, and $99 on the appropriate color, for $180. All told, the ultimate orgasm would net her $16,445.

And it would be a prolonged orgasm, as each individual bet would ratchet up on the screen in front of her, one after the other after the other, and she could watch it as the money grew and grew, screaming as each number appeared, until finally it was all over and she was left sitting there, breathless.

And she couldn’t do it.

Any win over $1,000 could not be cashed out of the machine. Instead, a representative of the casino would come to the table, demanding to know her social security number, and she’d have to present two forms of ID, and they’d give her a check instead of cash. All very well for a normal citizen, but for her? Someone who needed to maintain a low profile at the best of times?

No…that pleasure was forever denied her.

Besides, thought Michele with a smile as the 5 hit, and she placed $5 bets on the 5, the 10, the 15, the 20, the 25, the 30, and the 35, anyone who bet $99 on a single number was an idiot, let alone $99 on a single number and every other possible permutation surrounding it.

She would maintain her playing strategy, the strategy she knew worked, playing very conservatively. But since she was playing with someone else’s money, and she had such a lot of it, “conservative” had a different meaning. $5 minimum bets were her new watchword, and she’d ratchet the stakes up from there.

On this occasion, the 5 hit again, and $180 arrived on her screen. She hit the "repeat" button, and all her bets reappeared on the board. The croupier spun the wheel again, the ball fell into the slot for number 35, and $180 more arrived.

Michele cashed out her slip, folded it and placed it in a zippered pocket in her sweatpants, and put in four more hundred dollar bills.

Little orgasms…to the tune of $180 or so. So much better to have dozens of little orgasms over the course of several hours, than one ultimate orgasm that probably would never come.