Oh Boy

Mickey and Betsy stared at each other across the living room, puffs of wrapping paper littering the ground between them like unexploded landmines. Mickey was satisfied that it had been a good Christmas. He had given Betsy the emerald earrings she had mentioned after two glasses of wine during Thanksgiving dinner at Sid and Adelaide’s fancy dress potluck, and she had given him new socks, new underwear, and a new biography of Abraham Lincoln.

Mickey smoothed out his pajama pants and met Betsy’s shy smile.

“Shall we have breakfast, then?” asked Mickey.

“I think there is one more present left,” Betsy said, pointing. She pushed up her thick glasses and touched her hair where it was collected in a plain brown bun.

Mickey followed her finger to the box under the tree, a box wrapped in thick silver paper embossed with rocking horses. It hadn’t been there before. She must have put it out while she called her Uncle Herman in Munich and he went to go jack off in the bathroom, holding his fresh packet of new socks to his nose and imagining Betsy wearing nothing but new socks and a flashy gypsy belt.

“Is it for me?” asked Mickey.

“I’ll bet,” said Betsy.

Mickey got up from the easy chair next to the television and ran across the room. He had no idea what it was, but he restrained himself. He peeled back the wrapping paper carefully so that Betsy could use it again next year. It was the special paper she always used for his Christmas surprise. He had thought that this year -- since times were so lean -- there wouldn’t be any Christmas surprise.

Oh boy, was he wrong.

Inside the box was a brand new video camera with all the extras and attachments.

“Is it what you wanted?” asked Betsy, arching her back and twisting her hands in her lap.

“Oh yes!” said Mickey. “It’s just EXACTLY what I wanted! You are so smart and good to me!”

“Shall we have breakfast, then?” asked Betsy.

“Oh boy,” said Mickey.

Over toast, eggs, juice, coffee, ginger cookies, and sausages, Mickey played with the camera and read the instruction booklet while Betsy talked about Germany and what her Uncle Herman was up to. After awhile, she realized that Mickey wasn’t listening and gave up, watching him play with the camera in silence while she took small bites of sausage, using her fork like a scalpel to pick off meat flecks instead of stabbing the meat and shoving it in her mouth whole the way Mickey did.

“We’d better get ready for book club soon,” said Betsy. “There won’t be many people there since it is Christmas.”

“Mmmm-hmmmm,” said Mickey.

“What do you think we should do with this new camera?” asked Betsy.

“We could make our own movies,” said Mickey. “Just think of it.”

“Wow,” said Betsy.

“We could make movies out of our trips to the beach, and out of your nephew’s soccer game, and we could make little movies about funny stuff we do and put it on the internet. We could make movies of our birthdays and Halloween and New Year’s and even Christmas.”

Betsy touched her bun again and took a tiny sip of juice. She patted her lips with a napkin.

“I want you tie me up and fuck me and I want you to film it,” said Betsy.

Mickey spit coffee all over his shirt and almost spit coffee all over the camera. Betsy watched him with cold contempt and handed him a napkin.

“I want you to do it every night from now on,” said Betsy. “Different every time.”

“What about…nephews?” asked Mickey. “Soccer games?”

“If you want to dress up like my nephew, that’s fine,” said Betsy. “Whatever you want to do. That’s in your control.”

She grabbed his wrist. Her fingers were tight. Her nails dig into his arm in hard, flat crescents.

“That’s in your control.”

Mickey gulped and began flipping through the camera’s manual.

“Look at this,” he said, trying to change the subject. “Recording with video on video. You can do that now. We live in a big new digital age.”

“Mickey,” said Betsy. She let his wrist go and began collecting the breakfast dishes to wash them. “I’m serious. Now get ready for book club.”


2.

That night, Christmas night, Mickey played with his camera while Betsy changed in the bathroom. He talked to her through the door.

“I want to try something,” said Mickey. “If we’re going to do this, I want to try something that I think will be fun. Since you want to do it different every time.”

“Okay,” said Betsy.

“We can’t do it COMPLETELY different every time,” said Mickey. “If we do this thing I want to try.”

“You are in control,” said Betsy.

“There are a few things we have to keep the same,” said Mickey. “You have to wear the same thing every time, for instance, and dress the same way and keep your hair the same length and style.”

Betsy was quiet for awhile.

“Betsy?”

“Okay,” said Betsy.

“We also have to tie you up the same place every time,” said Mickey. “If we want it to work out right. We have to tie you up the same place and in the same position. We can’t mess up once.”

“Okay,” said Betsy. There was an excited quiver in her voice. She threw open the bathroom door and leaned against the door jamb. She wore high heels and a black bra and panties. She still wore her glasses, but her brown hair was down over her shoulders and she wore a new kind of make-up. It was more purple than before. There was powder on her neck and shoulders. She smelled nice, too.

“Oh boy!” said Mickey.

“I want to know what we will change,” said Betsy, walking slowly across the bedroom floor to stand in front of Mickey where he sat holding the camera manual, wearing his striped pajama bottoms.

They decided that it made the most sense to use the kitchen table, because their bed was too high off the ground and the lighting in their kitchen was much brighter than the lighting in their bedroom. Mickey lashed Betsy’s arms and legs to each of the table’s posts with rough hemp and then fretted with the tripod, moving it all the way back into the living room so that he could get the right angle on the shot.

“Are you comfortable?” asked Mickey.

“I’m not supposed to be comfortable,” said Betsy.

Mickey got out the black masking tape. Betsy shuddered with ecstasy until she realized that it wasn’t for her. Mickey got down on his hands and knees and marked the positions of all the furniture and of the camera tripod. He pushed Betsy up from the table and made a big “x” in masking tape underneath her. He put swatches of masking tape on the walls that looked like brackets. He changed the light-bulb above the kitchen table. He adjusted the rheostat until the lighting was perfect, and then he put a tiny piece of tape on the rheostat to mark the position.

“It will go faster tomorrow,” said Mickey. “I just have to make sure everything is the same every day we shoot.”

“But what are you going to change, Mickey?” shuddered Betsy from the table.

Mickey wrote down the date and some coordinates in a marble, black composition book. And he wrote down all the settings on the camera. He took off Betsy’s thick glasses and kissed her on her forehead.

“I can’t see anything,” said Betsy. “I can’t see anything at all! I can’t even see the tip of my own nose!”

Mickey put a piece of black tape over her mouth. In the notebook, he wrote down how many inches the tape was. Six inches.

“It will be different every single time,” said Mickey. “But not for you.”

“Gmmmm-nmmmmm,” said Betsy.

He waited there for hours and hours, standing beside her with his arms crossed. And then he made love to her more passionately than he ever had before, even on their honeymoon.


3.

She only ever came that first time.

Every day for a year, Mickey tied up his wife and fucked her on the kitchen table while he filmed it. It was different every time, but not for Betsy who always wore her hair the same way, kept it cut the same length, and always wore the same purplish make-up and the same black bra and panties.

Oh sure, Mickey was all over the place. Sometimes he would come at her from behind. Sometimes from the front. Sometimes, he wouldn’t even touch her at all. He’d just stand over her and jack off while she lay there, breathing heavy, unable to speak.

He always came quick. A minute, tops. Sometimes it would take him forever to get to her, and other times he would leave the camera rolling for a long time afterwards while she lay there with his semen drying inside her or drying on her exposed skin. Afterwards, she and Mickey would watch a late night movie before falling asleep in each other’s arms. They never missed a day and they even canceled the vacation they had planned to the Caribbean for the summer.

For the full week that they were supposed to be gone, Mickey smelled like suntan lotion and zinc oxide every time they filmed.

Mickey got an account at the costume rental shop in the city and he was such a regular there that they thought he was an actor who was trying out for different movies. He changed his haircut with such regularity that his coworkers at the bakery where Mickey was a cashier thought he was a musician who was trying to develop a new “look” so that he could revolutionize punk rock. Mickey found a sex shop that he liked and bought all sorts of new condoms and sex toys.

He was such a regular there that the sex shop clerk turned over all of his information to the FBI who watched Mickey for awhile, until they saw what he was doing, at which point they only watched him when they were bored or “in the mood.”

“When do I get to see the video?” asked Betsy one evening in October over steaks.

Mickey didn’t answer her. Their relationship had changed over the year in ways that were hard to describe. Mickey was a lot more cagy and secretive in a way that made Betsy very excited every time she saw him with a camera in his hand or holding black tape.

She didn’t know what he was going to do next.

When he didn’t answer her about the video, Betsy took a deep, ragged breath and then threw her arms around him, sticking her hands down his pants and whispering gibberish. Mickey grinned like a cat.


4.

The next year, on Christmas morning, there was only one present under the tree for Betsy. It was clearly a CD case and it was wrapped in thick silver paper embossed with rocking horses.

Betsy touched it and looked at Mickey. Mickey flicked his hand toward the computer and his eyes sparkled. Betsy tore open the wrapping paper and held the CD in her hands. She flushed bright red and kissed him. She put the CD in the computer and it began to play. They sat down on the sofa, arm in arm, the way they always watched their late night movie.

It was a black screen at first. And then the words “OH BOY” came on the screen in mile-high capital letters. Music started to play. It was the same light jazz that Mickey and Betsy had first danced to all those years ago at the Union Hall over in Junction.

The black screen faded into a shot of Betsy spread eagled across the kitchen table. The shot held for a few minutes and beside him on the couch, Mickey felt Betsy stiffen. Watching herself, she realized that she had not only been bound hand and foot every night while Mickey satisfied himself with her trussed body, she had also been bound in time and bound in art. She had been bound up in every way possible.

After a few moments, in came Mickey. He was dressed as he had been that first night: only in his pajama bottoms. He leaned over into the camera and waved. And then he went to go stand beside her. He stood there with his arms crossed as if waiting for something to happen.

And then in came Mickey again!

This time, he was dressed up like a baker. His hair was completely different and he had not shaved in a few days. Mickey the Baker went over to stand next to Original Mickey. They shook hands (their hands passed through each other as if one of them was a ghost) and they both smiled big at the camera.

In came more Mickeys. Fast this time. There was Mickey the Lifeguard, and Mickey the Marine, and Mickey the School Superintendent, and Mickey the Dentist, and Mickey the Scamp, and Mickey the Pirate. Vacation Mickey, and Superbowl Mickey, and Mickey White Gloves, and Mickey the Sleaze, and Mickey the Private Eye, and Mickey the Truck Driver. Wacky Goggles Mickey. Spidermickey. Little Mickey the Stinker. President Mickey. King Mickey. Queen Mickey. He wore his hair long, and short, and in curls, and as a Mohawk, and in tresses like a French Corsair. Slowly, Mickeys begin filling the kitchen and lining up in queues until the screen was full of him, hunching down in squats, lounging around like lazy tigers. There were Mickeys everywhere, everywhere but in a direct line between Betsy and the camera.

And then the Mickeys began to fuck her.

They lined up and they fucked her three hundred and sixty five different ways – smiling laughing, using toys, using fingers, using levers, dancing, snorting, bucking, casual, quiet, progressive, demonstrative, diminutive, painfully, casually, romantically, distractedly, intensely, laconically, coldy, hotly, con brio, con queso, controlling, contorting, condom on, condom off, condom blinking and buzzing like a worn-out neon light. Original Mickey stood in the corner of the kitchen and watched them all fuck his wife -- all these Mickeys -- and he smiled on them all with cool benevolence.

For hours, he and Betsy on the sofa watched all these Mickeys penetrate and enjoy her. Sometimes two at a time. Sometimes six at a time. More Mickeys came to replace the ones that finished and left.

On the kitchen table, Betsy buzzed and flickered as if she were a ghost, her body morphing and jerking with the film overlays. She vibrated in 365 different dimensions at once.

“Oh Mickey,” she said beside him on the sofa.

“I’m sorry about the way you look,” he said. “I know you look possessed. There wasn’t much I could do about it. I tried to tie you up as tightly as possible so that you wouldn’t move too much, but you moved anyway no matter what I did.

“Oh Mickey,” she said again.

And then all the other Mickeys were done and it was just Original Mickey there with Betsy on the table.

He walked casually over to where she lay spread out like a bird ready for carving. And then he mounted her one last time and made love to her deeply. Passionately. Skillfully. And she came there on the table as she came there next to him on the sofa, touching herself with her hand on his shoulder.

They held each other for awhile and the light jazz stopped playing and the screen went black.

“I guess we’d better get ready for book club,” said Betsy.

“No more book club,” said Mickey.

Betsy’s mouth went dry. She protested with her eyes. But Mickey was firm.

“So what will we do now?” asked Betsy, leaning her head against his shoulder. "Instead?"

“Oh boy,” said Mickey, rubbing his hands, licking his lips, and then tucking his thumbs into his suspenders while Betsy chewed on his ear and growled.

The Puke Bet

“Here’s the bet,” said Spider, putting his arm around the Fiend Scumbag’s shoulders and casually steering him away from the crowd of ladies that had gathered around as soon as the roulette wheel stopped on the Fiend Scumbag’s lucky number, double 00. “If you can puke a urinal cake across a hotel room floor, I won’t tell Pete the Terrorist that you gambled with his bag money. If you can’t puke a urinal cake across a hotel room floor, you have to give us half of what you won.”

The Fiend Scumbag’s brow furrowed.

“Half is crazy,” said Spider, agreeing with the Fiend Scumbag’s crumbling facial expression. “We’ll make it ten grand.”

The Fiend Scumbag’s brow cleared.

Ten grand was nothing. Spider counted up how much the Fiend Scumbag had won on his ridiculous bet even before the cheers died down. The Fiend Scumbag jumped through several tax brackets instantaneously, like a rocketship punching through layers of atmosphere. Even though Spider and Cat had spent the whole night trying to talk the Fiend Scumbag out of his suicidal long-shot bet, now that he was a winner, he was fair game.

All along, the Fiend Scumbag had said he had a lucky feeling, and he had been right.

“37 to 1,” I whispered to Cat. “We’ve got to get this guy alone as soon as possible before he blows what he won on some other impossible gamble.”

I chugged my margarita while Cat gathered the Fiend Scumbag’s chips into a plastic grocery bag. We followed Spider, who was leading the Fiend Scumbag to the elevator. The Fiend Scumbag kept looking over his shoulder at his chips and at the ladies who were licking their lips and arching their backs at him, hoping to get a tip or a proposition.

“Pete the Terrorist will kill you whether you or rich or not,” whispered Spider. “You know this. We have to come to an understanding.”

Casino security met us at the elevator lobby.

“Sir,” said the head agent, a beefy bald man with mustache tracks that ran in perfect, curly lines across his upper lip and down both sides of his jaw, all the way down his neck in perfectly-manicured stripes. “We would be more than willing to look after your winnings for you while you spend the night, for free, in our luxurious hotel. Winning a tremendous amount of money can be exhilarating, and people don’t always make good choices afterwards. They can become prey for opportunists.”

The agent looked at me and Spider, narrowing his eyes.

“Pete the Terrorist,” mouthed Cat behind the security agent. “Will KILL you.”

“Mmmm,” mumbled the Fiend Scumbag, stroking his long scraggly beard and adjusting his giant rhinestone sunglasses. He shrugged at the casino security agent. “Hey, man, don’t inn-sinn-you-ate. These are my friends, man. I love these guys. Don’t hassle us. Take the money, alright, but leave me a hundred grand in chips, alright.”

Cat handed the security agent the plastic bag full of chips and the security agent counted out ten white ones and gave them to the Fiend Scumbag. The security agent clicked his heels, massaged his mustache, gave us a hotel key for a top floor suite, and then he was gone.


***


Cat, Spider and I were a team. We made bets. Mostly, we cheated. It didn’t pay our bills, and it was dangerous and addictive, but we did it every weekend and every vacation.

We had rules.

One: Never bet against anybody with infinite wealth, such as a casino. You can’t win. The whole science of probability was developed by Christiaan Huygens to prove this scientific fact and win a bet against Blaise Pascal. The mathematical principle is called “The Gambler’s Ruin,” and sometimes you’ll see the formula scrawled on the wall in casino bathrooms. Even in a fair game, the person who can play longest and keep losing will eventually win 100% of the available money. And in a casino, even the poker tables are stacked with house players who bet without sweating, betting house dollars against your shaky savings.

Two: Never bet against anybody with nothing to lose, because what could you possibly win?

Three: Never get involved in a bet where you don’t have more control over the outcome than the person you are betting against. It gets tricky, though. If people feel hustled, they won’t pay. That’s why we’ve got rule number four.

Four: Never work alone.

Spider and Cat were the talent, and I took care of everything else. My own luck was terrible, but I had a knack for knowing if a bet was winnable or not. In side-bets, you always needed a witness and someone who could size up your competition. You needed somebody who could make the loser pay afterwards. I was muscle, I was a notary, I had legal training, and I was cold-blooded. They called me Remora: I traveled with sharks and ate what they ate. Spider and Cat took care of winning, but we all got our cut.


***


“Man oh man,” said the Fiend Scumbag in the elevator. “I’m one rich bad dude.”

“So we’ve got a bet?” asked Spider.

“Oh of course,” said the Fiend Scumbag, shaking Spider’s hand limply. “Just let me order some things from room service, and then we’ll DO this thing, baby. I don’t lie about my puke skills. My puke skills are solid as Christian love.”

The Fiend Scumbag was an acquaintance with whom we sometimes played poker. The Fiend Scumbag was one of New York’s most impressive professional drug addicts, and he kept himself supplied by acting as a courier for several Queens and Brooklyn cartels that were not in direct competition. He was trusted, he was dependable, and he had a reputation for being one of the luckiest couriers in the business, which is why we agreed to tag along with him. This weekend, he brought us along on his delivery from Boston to New York, with a stopover in Atlantic City, so that we could keep him company and protect him from “bad vibes” and “mojo.” Conversely, we thought some of his luck would rub off on us.

This trip, the Fiend Scumbag was supposed to take mushrooms to Boston and bring back money for a particularly nasty small-time supplier named Pete the Terrorist. Pete the Terrorist got his name because he also laundered money for several wealthy East Coast donors to the IRA. Also, Pete liked to blow stuff up for no reason: or rather, he would blow stuff up -- maybe somebody’s new moped, maybe somebody’s favorite horse, or maybe just a park bench that he didn’t like -- and then come up with a reason later, usually something political. He was a difficult man to deal with, and he was one of those difficult people for whom you did favors out of fear rather than courtesy.

We stopped off in Atlantic City because we figured there might be some high rollers that could be tricked into a side game up in their rooms, and we also figured that we could hustle a little Space Invaders, Street Fighter, Killer Instinct, or pool (Cat was a certified master at all four). But the Fiend Scumbag had wandered off to the floor games, and he had become passionately excited about roulette, talking about it all night long like some kind of mad sickness. One thing led to another, and he got it set in his mind that he would win big if he bet Pete’s bag money, on account of the fact that it wasn’t his money and that it had all kinds of bad karma attached to it that made it powerful.

And goddamit, he had won.

“Yeah, is this room service? Oh man. I want some ice cream, and some wasabi peas, and a big fucking mountain of mashed potatoes, and a damn steak, and I also want a bowl of chili and a hot fucking cherry pie. Oh yeah, and some kind of stir fry – greasy as hell – and some fried chicken with the skin on. I want some cocktail onions, just a big bowl of cocktail onions. And I want some barbecue chips, and some chocolate chips, and some chips of ice. Oh yeah, and I also want a wedge of brie wrapped up in bacon. Can you do that? Yeah. I want the brie cold and I want the bacon hot. AND YOU KNOW WHAT? I want you to drizzle some chocolate sauce on it. Fuck yeah. Yeah, I know. I’m excited about it too. Also, I want a carton of milk. No, fuck that, change it: I want a carton of heavy cream.”

“Don’t forget beer,” said Spider. Our eyes met. He looked away. The cunning bastard.

“Oh yeah, what was I thinking. Bring me a case of beers, too. Something light.”

Spider went down to the gas station across the street to steal their urinal cake. The Fiend Scumbag’s food arrived in waves and we watched him eat.

“I’ve always been a little bit nauseous,” said the Fiend Scumbag between mouthfuls. “But I first realized that I was a puking expert when I was in college. I could drink and puke and then drink some more, when everybody else was passing out or getting hauled away in ambuli. I could puke at will, as long as I had the rumble and the reason. Man, and then I started to get GOOD at it. I could do trajectories! I could hit targets! Like, the first time I ever did heightch, I was actually in this Thailand hospital getting treated for a broken toe. They had to cut into my foot and I was real nice about it so they fucking gave me their best shit. Anyway, I puked the whole time, and the nurse, this beautiful Thai ladyboy who was into me, kept moving the trashcan further and further back, just to see how far I could shoot my shit. It was like a dance of seduction for both of us. I wanted to get his number or his address, but when they discharged me, the shift changed, and I never saw him again. Ever since, puking has always been my thing. Maybe I’m too cocky about this shit, but straight up, if people want to see a guy do puke tricks, they come to me. Spider’s won some bets on me before. He’s a sweetheart about it. The man always cuts me in.”

The Fiend Scumbag belched and then ate a handful of cocktail onions followed by a huge bite of cherry pie. Finally, the bacon-wrapped-brie showed up in a steaming chafing dish and he ate the whole thing in one bite while the bellhop watched.

The bellhop gave the Fiend Scumbag a high-five. The Fiend Scumbag gave the bellhop one of his beers and then drank four of them all in a row, one after another. The bellhop left, shaking his head and smiling.

“The high life!” said the bellhop.

Spider returned with the urinal cake. It was blue one and said “San-Ease.” He put it down exactly in the center of the suite’s marble floor and we started moving furniture to clear space for it to travel. The room was huge, a wedding double, and we cleared a path from the main living area all the way to the bathroom.

“So how long do I have? I mean, can I sit here all day long and puke at that toilet cake?” asked the Fiend Scumbag.

“You can take all the time you like,” said Spider, with a twinkle in his eye.

“You know something I don’t know, don’t you?” asked the Fiend Scumbag. “Alright, man, alright. But how close can I get? Can I get right in that toilet cake’s face, or do you want me to stand behind some kind of line or something?”

Spider grunted and pushed a couch over to where the Fiend Scumbag was standing. He pushed it until it was right up against the Fiend Scumbag’s waist.

“You have to stand behind the couch,” said Spider. “No cheating.”

“Man, I never cheat at anything,” said the Fiend Scumbag. “Alright, check this out, guys. I am allergic to milk. So, like, here comes the hurricane.”

The Fiend Scumbag ate another fast plate of stir-fry and drank two more beers, and then he opened the carton of heavy cream. He took off his rhinestone shades and rubbed his eyes. Then he chugged the heavy cream with his hair pulled back, making little mooing noises.

When he was done, he threw the empty carton of cream across the room and hit himself in the forehead. His face was red. His hands shook.

“Here comes the hurricane, baby!” he shouted. “Storm alert! Tape up your windows! Squeeze your children, tell them you love them, and make your will! Put a longboat on your roof and fill that sonofabitch with drinking water! Because: here! Comes! The! Wind!”

The Fiend Scumbag threw his head back and then launched forward. A stream of pink, chunky puke flew across the room and hit the urinal cake dead on. It flew three feet toward the bathroom in the deluge, washing it half-way to glory.

The urinal cake started to sizzle. The urinal cake started to melt. The Fiend Scumbag wiped his mouth.

“Oh man,” said the Fiend Scumbag. Then he laughed like a loon, seeing how the game was gonna go. “That cake is gonna shrivel up and die! Damn you, Spider! Damn you all to hell!”

“The chemical properties of urinal cake are written right on the package for anyone to see,” I said sagely. “The new ones are pure naphthalene. Coal tar. Alcohol sets ‘em off. If you work in a bar, you have to replace them every weekend. You’d better hit it again fast, or there won’t be anything to hit.”

The Fiend Scumbag pulled a cocktail onion out of his nose and threw it at me. I ducked but it hit me in my shoulder anyway. The Fiend Scumbag belched again and clung to the side of the couch.

“Here comes the wind and rain,” he muttered. “Get ready for the flood, man. Get those animals in the ark two by two.”

Puke bubbled from his lips and he blew out another load, topping the urinal cake and making it spin. It smeared across the floor and stopped inches away from the bathroom, where it receded into the Fiend Scumbag’s bile like a sinking ship. Glug glug glug. Blue urinal cake bubbles popped on the skin of the Fiend Scumbag’s vomit like champagne.

“What a good try,” said Cat, clapping.

“There was a chance you’d get it on the first try,” said Spider. “What if you hit it with a hard wad of meat?”

We all watched the Fiend Scumbag in silence, wondering what he would do.

“Fuck it,” said the Fiend Scumbag. He flipped a chip to Spider like a quarter. He pulled a little white baggie of heroin from his pocket and waved it in Spider’s face. “Take the ten grand. I’m still a rich man with a rich man’s habit.”

The Fiend Scumbag curled up on the couch, cradling his bag of heroin like a stuffed animal.

“Should we leave?” I asked.

“It would be a shame to waste all the food that’s left,” said Cat, clucking her tongue.

“I have an idea!” said Spider, holding up the chip. “Who’s up for a game of poker? Nothing personal. Something friendly. A rich man’s game for a rich man with a habit.”

The Fiend Scumbag raised an eyebrow.