Laughlin

The car reeks of sex as we enter Laughlin on Casino Drive. We eat some place at the Edgewater. I tell them I want the meat blue and they have no idea what it means. You can always tell what kind of a restaurant you’re at if they know what “blue” means.

As predicted, it’s the worst filet mignon I’ve ever had. I order an Americano but they don’t know what that is either. I ask for two shots of espresso and warm water and make my own.

“Isn’t it hilarious that a ruined, watered-down espresso is called ‘an American’?” I ask my boyfriend. He doesn’t get it. He just likes that I’m a snob. I think it kind of turns him on, feeds his ego that a snob will fuck him. I better not tell him that I am trying to be more, you know, egalitarian.

Casinos are little bite-size Judeccas on earth. Everyone looks like hell sitting in front of the slot machines. People sit for hours here, fat asses spilling over the little stools, stubby arms pulling the levers again and again. Their eyes follow the spinning reels, like little hamsters inside their heads. Tragic.

As we’re leaving the place, I see a billboard over the Riverside announcing a Lisa Loeb concert. “July 1 & 2!” it reads, right after the menu specials flash. The picture shows her in her staple cat-eye tortoiseshell glasses; the old promo shot from 1994, the good old days when “Stay” was everyone’s break-up song thanks to Reality Bites. Pathetic.

A few miles away, we’re at our desert house, a small three bedroom in the middle of nowhere. He’d turned on the air conditioning over the phone hours earlier, so it’s a manageable temperature when we walk in. Technology is a fabulous thing.

The sun is setting behind the jagged mountains; pink and gold reflect over the pool. I’m on one of the ridiculously small chairs outside, reading. I try to light a cigarette, but the lighter has a child-lock and I don’t understand how to work it. I notice my boyfriend stirring in bed through the adjacent window and I walk over. I stand in front of the glass door like I can’t see him and look at myself. I pull the strings of my bikini top and it falls to my feet. I lick a thumb and rub it over my nipple.

I have his attention.

I turn around and pull down my bottoms, spreading my legs a little and bending forward. I put the unlit cigarette in my mouth and begin stroking myself. I can see my reflection in the living room windows. That’s hot.

When I look over my shoulder, I see my boyfriend standing behind the glass, jacking off. I turn around to face him, lowering myself to a crouch, legs spread.

At climax, he opens the door, takes hold of my hair and cums on my sunglasses. A second later, I hear a click as he lights the cigarette still perched on my lips. I push my sunglasses up to the top of my head and he kisses my forehead before tossing the lighter on a side table and sliding the door shut again.

I turn around and face the desert. Such a spiritual place.

Image by AV Flox. Published in Black Heart Magazine, Winter 2007, Issue #4, pp. 40-41.