A Little Loss Prevention
A wealthy casino owner sends his recently hired "loss prevention" agent to deal with anyone who hits the jackpot, though unaware that she's after a grand prize all her own.
"Charlotte, dear, I'd been thinking about the rabbit's paw you'd worn the other day..."
Gatson strained to observe the casino's traffic through cigar puffs and his one-way window. "Would it still bring luck if the rabbit himself was so unfortunate? Because I'm in the betting mood tonight and you can't have it with you if we're to wager," he jested.
His humor was not met by the black cat idling in the dimmer corners of his personal lounge.
"Though I will admit, I was absolutely intrigued to see you sporting such a cute little accessory, and I certainly must say that- Oh! Hold that thought; There's one fellow down there who's really invested." The chimpanzee fixated on a fox whose muzzle was close enough to his slot machine that he'd be able to lick it clean of winnings.
"Oh my," Gatson uttered, "this one may have his lucky handkerchief..." He gestured the feline over. "Come, you may as well identify him now."
Charlotte strode from the sofa, but she'd just missed the sight and Gatson snapped his fingers. "Damn. My apologies, Ms. Hendrix; he was one digit from believing he'd retire to a lavish beachfront estate. There: you see that fellow storming off to the ATM?" The chimp tapped ash from his smoke with a rumbling, coughing laugh and reclined to admire his associate.
"While you're over here, a drink?" He tugged a sparkling cider from the ice bucket and poured; a sly peek and he saw her eyes craving, wanting for something on their swivel across the game room.
"Please, enjoy your downtime; I refuse to allow you to hunt yourself ragged," he murmured as he raised her glass. "If you can't relax here, of all places, then where at all? Let me know if there's anything I can arrange to better accommodate you..."
Charlotte raised a paw against the offer and wrinkled her nose. Her eyes scintillated with not promise or joy, but the reflection of a thousand lights as they swept over his head to survey for other targets of interest - or as he suspected, something specific that she hadn't yet found.
"Ah, not thirsty. How rude of me. Though, I must ask why you don't want more in return for running my little 'errands'? It'd be my pleasure to provide for you," he assured, inching nearer with each sentence, "monetarily, or otherwise; you need only tell me what you like..." His advance stopped when her ears perked and eyes widened, her form tense and lithe.
"What's alerted you, dear?" Gatson turned to the glass with a furrowed brow. "Good lord, that fellow must use two gym memberships..." At the entrance, the automatic doors rushed aside to appease the statuesque wolf that ducked beneath their frame on his way in. "...but that won't be a concern should he find himself too lucky for his own good. Remember that no one prances out of here with my wealth, Charlotte. Charlotte?"
She was gone, and Gatson reclined with a content grin to sip his drink.
* * *
"Don't spend it all in one place, then," the cab driver quipped as he pulled to the curb.
My grip tightened on my stack of dollars. "I might have to," I replied. "Appreciate the ride though."
I wasn't two steps from the car before the driver pulled off in a cloud of exhaust that left me choking my ass off. Jesus, so much for that eco-friendly shit. When my eyes cleared, I looked up at the sign that lead me back every payday:
CAMELLIA BAY CASINO
Same time, same place. I waded chest deep through the crowded walk to duck under the entranceway and decided I needed a drink before getting to business. Your throat would be dry too if you had to win next month's rent from a slot machine.
I headed to the bar and called at the server, "Sparkling cider if you have it. Make it cold," then stared at my reflection in the polished wood. I was roughed, down already, and I hadn't even lost yet. Maybe I just needed a trim. Or the drink.
Something at the edge of my sight raised hairs. "Whoa- scared the shit out of me, lady." The black cat I hadn't noticed looked wistfully at the shelves of alcohol behind the bar. "Pardon my French, miss. Been having a rough week." I looked her up maybe longer than was tasteful. They weren't lying about the women around here...
"Here, bud." The barkeeper's voice brought me back.
"Much appreciated. You thirsty?" I asked the cat. "Barkeep, another one for her, please." The woman's eyes came my way. "I insist," I said before a tip of my glass.
Her whiskers twitched. Hell, I could appreciate a quiet one. Barkeeper slides a glass to her and she lifts it for the tiniest sip while I down my own.
"You from the area?"
She cocks her head in some kinda "maybe".
"I'm from up the district: a good area with a lot of bad problems. Shut down some businesses for instance, and you got guys like me looking for places like this, if not just scattered in the wind, you know?" A tense in her lips felt like sympathy.
"Trying to stay positive," I mumbled and dropped a tip on the counter, "but it ain't always my choice to make. See you around."
Odd woman. While my dollars jingled as coins from a token exchange, I looked back: lightless fur, in the middle of a casino. She'd hardly touched her drink and her tail swished from her firm - I wasn't staring - rump. Needed to focus...
I pocketed the coins and browsed the gallery where machines flashed to bait the nearest sucker, but I wasn't a fool; I was here for a reason. I figured the back rows would be better for privacy no matter the outcome, and entered a far aisle - then almost yelped at the black figure right around the corner.
"Shit, you gonna scare me all night!?" I smiled, but she had the same apathy as ten-minutes prior. I seated at the machine beside hers, which she'd been stroking with a claw, and reached for my coins. "Don't pray for me."
One fell into the slot, then another, like I was saying goodbye to silver darlings. The machine swallowed each one and made a perky electronic noise, then the pull lever lit up.
"Here goes." I paused for the cat's attention, but didn't get it, and went ahead with the pull that sent seven columns whirring onscreen: their icons slowed to line up without a matching pair. "Not even two?"
The cat yawned and cozied up further in her chair cushions.
"Gonna hit it again..." I grabbed more coins, and my pocket was already feeling light. Another pull sent the columns rolling again, but they settled on a matching three-set of not-worth-a-damn.
"Shit." Pull after pull had given me different combinations of the same thing: nothing. Now I was on my last try, evident from my heart's pace alone. The woman hardly moved, but from her fingers' tapping and the way her tail flicked about beneath her, she seemed...annoyed? Bothered? Had she been rooting for me?
"This is it, ma'am. One more, give or take a few coins. Here it is..." Each piece took effort to get in the slot with my hands shaking like a motherfucker off his pills. The lever lit up. I put my palm on it, said a prayer, and pulled with a jerk.
The machine spun up, and my sore eyes followed the icons around their course to a stop at their final result: the penalty noise I was so used to hearing struck my ears again, and they laid.
"Fuck!" I threw my hands up. "That's a wrap." And it was. I must have been a sight to look at that moment. I checked my neighbor: yeah, something was itching at her, but her tail swished with calm.
"Been a pleasure, miss. Guess I'll spend these extras on some gum..." Before I got up, a glint in the corner of my eye caught my attention: The woman's arm extended to me a single coin on her fingertip.
"What's this?" I inspected the coin: no different from any other. "Huh. Thanks," I muttered and slipped it in my pocket, where it slithered to land on the others.
Wait a sec... I pulled them out. One...two...three...four...
"Oh - guess it's enough for an extra go," I concluded and returned to my chair. "Appreciate it. Let's watch this hot ass mess." I inserted the rest and yanked the lever hard, and the machine fired up and spun its icons like seven wheels of fate. I glanced: this time the woman was watching, intently, from the corner of her eye.
The icons finalized. And I couldn't believe it.
With the machine going crazy with fanfare, half-drowned by the torrent of tokens raining into the jackpot bowl, I couldn't believe it. Even in the back rows, curious folks came to watch me sit dumbfounded in the revelry. "I..." my jaw hung, "...won?" The cat didn't mirror my spreading grin, but her eyes' reflection of the strobes was expression on its own.
"Holy shit!" I said with both hands plunged deep in the fortune. "You saved me, woman!" I scooped her up and twirled until I got a funny look back. "How am I going to repay you?" I considered as I set her down. My timing could've been better: for a moment it felt like she was hugging me back. "Come on," I beckoned as I bagged my reward, "Let's hit the city..."
With the brimming sack of tokens, we headed to the cash exchange on the way out.
* * *
"What a damned good night," I said, making good on the chance to admire her without having to peek. "Not often that someone gives you a hand when you're on your last leg."
The cat's expression said what she didn't with words: her eyes softened, her tail swished rhythmically, and she stepped closer on those dainty paws. Close that she'd met me with a gaze - a lustful gaze that I had too, if my reflection in her eyes was real.
"Good idea to hold off on spending up this money, too." I gave the weighty bag a shake. "I promise, this is the start of some better spending habits... So," I knelt level with her, "you doing anything later?"
Her smile was a surprise, but not so much as the furred lips that came forward to embrace my own. She let herself have me for sweet minutes before pulling off and licking my taste from her mouth.
"Miss, I..." I didn't have words from my coursing mind and heart.
Her hand came to rest on mine, stroking it before her fingers moved to the bag of cash. Did she want to see it? I let it into her grasp for a ginger perusal. Her eyes drifted back to me, where they remained as she reached in her pocket.
"Miss, is everything okay?" I worried. Worry turned to panic when she pulled a shrink ray. "Hey...wait! You don't have to- " I couldn't finish my sentence as a horrible, paralyzing black light washed over me, blinding me until I fell to my knees. For the dozenth time of the night I was in disbelief.
"W-why..." I uttered, my nerves shivering like mad from an invisible iciness. To both sides were paws that would have easily blended into the night were they not my size tenfold. "You...Is this what you were going for?"
Those moonless eyes gazed down on me and made my head hang; I couldn't look any longer. "I... I guess I don't really have the right to be surprised," I muttered. "How could a gambling fuck-up seriously expect to win money and beautiful women? The last throw always was the worst when I got snake eyes..."
I waited for the rest. "Go on. Get it over with. That's how this works, right?" The excruciating pain never came. I peeked up, then fell on my ass from the two amethyst eyes inches away. "What do you want, lady..."
Black fingers plucked me up whole and caressed me from top to bottom. I tried to speak, but my mouth sealed shut at not only her strokes, but the night's second approach of her lips. Again she enjoyed me, and in that split moment I felt to return the overwhelming embrace, she pulled away.
I couldn't find words...but words found me. A voice startled me and brought my senses back in a wash of warm breath as it penetrated my ears:
"To cherish my jackpot, of course..."