I didn’t want to fully imagine that scenario, and I trusted you to know. At the end of our lesson, you presented me with my very own blade.
“It’s adorable,” I said happily and clapped my hands together like this was a promposal. “It looks like a baby tantō.”
“It’s very sharp,” you warned and pressed the very tip to your finger, drawing blood without even depressing the blade. You sucked on your fingertip, and I wanted it in my mouth.
“It’s meant for one thing,” you cautioned, still referring to the blade.
“Understood.” I didn’t like to think about having to use it. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that.
I then demonstrated some of my fencing techniques to strike, parry, and riposte with the short blade, and you showed me the best places to incapacitate an attacker.
“You do whatever it takes. Gouge out their eyes with your fingernails, rip out their throat with your teeth, slice them with your blade, but remember the goal is always to get away.”
You then fitted me with a leather shoulder harness, which would conceal my new blade under most of my clothing. I wasn’t supposed to leave our hotel room without it.
And then it was time to make our first appearance on the Strip. You’d had our suits shipped to the hotel. It took me a while to primp, which meant you spent most of that time watching me and groaning. At one point you came up behind me in the mirror and fixed the back of my collar. I shivered from that small attention. Instant boner.
Then I noticed you’d barely even combed your hair.
“Henri, come here.” I undid the rubber band at the nape of your neck and worked a wet comb through your mane to tame it, then carefully retied it in a low ponytail. Then I decided your beard needed shaping and a few swipes with a razor around the edges to better define it.
“There.” I presented you to the mirror. You angled your head from side to side, admiring my work.
“Am I presentable enough now to escort you for the evening?”
“Definitely. I’d totally blow you right now.” I’d blurted it out, but I really wanted to give it a try. Drop down on my knees and demonstrate my cuke-sucking abilities. Maybe cut you a little bit. All I wanted was a couple of hours with free rein over your body to do whatever pervy thing I could imagine. It was probably why you were tied up in so many of my fantasies, so that you couldn’t get away.
Your nostrils flared at my offer. “As enticing as that sounds, perhaps we should go before we end up needing to have these suits dry-cleaned?”
I growled my dissent, and you steered me toward the door.
We went to MGM Grand because I’d seen enough movies set in Las Vegas that I wanted to check it out for myself. The casino was huge. There was so much gold and blinking lights and shiny objects. Like Disney for grown-ups where everything is a gaudy, over-the-top replica of the real thing. It was late already, but the buildings in Las Vegas were windowless, so it was easy to lose track of time.
Inside the casino were rows and rows of slot machines with people lined up in front of them, eyes glued to the screens. They were so zoned-out, I’d bet I could bite one of them without much fuss at all.
There were fewer people at the tables. You took me to the bar first, all the while scouting our surroundings. Your safehouse had provided us with fake ID’s which meant I could drink, so I ordered some sweet concoction called a Pink Lady that you said tasted like Penicillin. I’d never had antibiotics before, but it tasted delicious.
“Take a tour of the tables,” you said. “See if you can get a read on the crowd. If you notice someone with malevolent energy, identify them for me. And if you spot Seneser, say the codeword.”
The codeword was Pikachu, the first thing I’d thought of because I was a ten-year-old. There was a hidden mic in my lapel and a tiny, unnoticeable hearing aid in my ear to help us communicate. I was drawn to the craps table first, probably because those players were the most fired up. I didn’t understand the rules of the game, so I couldn’t say for sure who was winning. I wasn’t an expert in sensing demonic energy, but they seemed like normal, uninhabited humans to me.