Waking Up in Vegas(3)

After a run in the cool twilight air, I had gotten cleaned up to hit the nightlife. First stop of the evening was mandatory; The Pulse had a thing going at Pure nightclub in Caesar’s Palace, and all Cirrus radio air talent was expected to put in an appearance.

Hear that? It’s the theme from Jaws.

Not only do club music and techno pierce my brain like nails on a chalkboard, but there was one person there I truly hoped I wouldn’t run into.





I was almost finished with my obligatory thirty minutes at Pure and eying the exit. None of the blatantly overdone women in this place had grabbed my attention well enough to make me consider sticking around. Besides, Pure was more for tourists than locals. And if I picked up a beauty who was on vacation, chances are that she’d want to spend all of her remaining nights with me as her ‘Vegas Vacation Hookup’ and I never sign on for more than a one-way trip around the sheets.

I don’t do relationships. I’m like the city I live in–here to entertain for a night or a week, but it’s all with a definite lack of seriousness. And like club-hopping on the Strip, there’ve been memorable nights where I surfed the mattresses of more than one beauty.

I believe in sharing the joy.

Quit rolling your eyes. It’ll smudge your mascara. Or flake your eyeliner, or whatever that eye-crap does.

Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, talking about my dick.

‘Cause, y’know, guy, etcetera.

There has, on rare occasions, been a woman or two who required a little more time for full exploration. None have needed more than a weekend. I mean, you all have the same parts and there are only so many variations on the arrangement.

“Spartacus!”

Oh dear God. Let my mind wander for just one minute and look what happens.

I turned toward the voice before it could roar that word again and slammed into its owner, a petite brunette who was, thankfully, quite sturdy in her high heels. She should be. She’d worn them almost every night for years.

“Were you going to run off without saying hello?”

“Never. Hi, Mom.”

And now you know my only secret. And so help me, if you breathe a word to a living soul about what Tack is short for, I will seriously hunt you down and kill you. And everyone you told. The desert outside Las Vegas is huge and mostly unexplored. You’d do well to keep that in mind.

“I was just running some change out to the cashiers up front. Why don’t you come along?”

This was not a request. My mother has been a Caesar’s fixture for thirty years, and while the words may be spoken in the sweetest of voices, I knew I had better obey. It was this do-it-or-there’s-the-door attitude that made her the youngest club manager in the company’s history, and what, I’m sure, made her able to put up with me. I was, to hear her tell it, quite a handful.

It’s also why my father gave her the divorce. She expected him to earn a paycheck, and he expected to earn money by gambling her paychecks. She was unyielding, and he moved back to somewhere in Colorado. I haven’t heard from him in years.

“Sure, Mom, I’ll be your bodyguard. But why aren’t you using the tubes?” Years ago, the casino had installed a pneumatic tube system for cash drops and change-runs to safeguard all that vulnerable cash from floating around the floor.

“I wanted to gauge the crowd out front, and this way the staff won’t think I’m there to check up on them.”

“Although you are.”

She just smirked at me and kept walking.





Once I’d gotten near the doors, there was no reason to go back inside and subject my ears to any more of the racket in there. Or out front. There are mammoth speakers in the overhang and I think the music is actually louder out here than in the club.

I hugged my mom goodbye, and even in her heels, she had to stretch to kiss my cheek. I’m still amazed that someone as tall as I am came from someone as tiny as she. You’d never know we were related, until you compared our eyes. Both of us are ice-blue in the peeper department, but I think hers are more piercing. Or maybe that’s just because I’ve been on the receiving end of her glare so damn often.

I drove over to the Hard Rock to see what bands were playing in the clubs inside. I didn’t recognize any of the names, but none of them were techno, so it was all good.

Now, what flavor was I interested in this evening? Dark-haired? Blonde? Maybe a fiery redhead? I grabbed a beer and scanned the bodies dancing in front of the low stage.

How a woman moves to music tells a lot about how she is as a lover. Is she shy and barely moving? Pass. Is she wild and gangly and enthusiastic? I don’t want to lose a testicle, so pass on her, too. The ones who fall in-between those two ends of the spectrum are the ladies I’m watching for.