With long, straight black hair, large breasts, and enormous blue eyes, Connie was very sexy. Without invitation, she spread her towel on the sundeck next to Sherry and began chatting in her smooth, purring voice. She struck Sherry as something of a social-climber – the kind of girl who liked to hob-nob with celebrities and semi-celebrities and might be on the look-out for an affluent husband. She certainly had the manner and looks for it.
The three of them sat there baking lathe sun for perhaps twenty minutes when Gil Turner came over wearing a very flowery pair of swimming trunks. "Hi, gang," his deep voice boomed. "Mind if I join the sweat brigade?" he asked.
"Not at all," Sherry said.
"Hello, Gil," Victor said, squinting at him. Gil held a tall drink in his hand, his inevitable prop. Ice tinkled in the glass as he sat down cross-legged on his towel next to Connie.
"Gil, this is Connie," Sherry said, introducing them. "She works here in the lounge. She serves cocktails. With your consumption, you two should get along famously. Gil is my agent," Sherry added.
Gil grinned, taking in Connie's full, ripe body. "Very nice to know you," he said seductively.
The word "agent" seemed to perk Connie up considerably and Sherry guessed that her appraisal of Connie as an "important people seeker" was correct. She gave Gil a fetching smile, revealing perfectly capped teeth and said, "It must be wonderful and exciting representing real talent," she said. "Traveling all over and seeing interesting and exciting places." Her voice raised a full octave in pitch.
Gil took a long sip from his drink, then contemplated Connie's remark as he chewed ice. "Yes," he agreed, nodding, "and then sometimes it's a lot of shit. Pure, unadulterated bullshit."
Gil had had quite a bit to drink, Sherry could tell, and Connie didn't know just how to react. There was a nervous trembling about the edges of her fixed smile. Gil liked to shock people with language when he'd been drinking. It was one of his favorite games. But of course Connie didn't know that. Victor propped himself up on one elbow grimacing. "Please forgive Gil," he said. "When he's hitting the sauce he has a tendency to try to startle people. You don't find dealings related to our act distasteful do you, Gil?" Victor asked.
"Of course not," he said somewhat apologetically. "I'm talking about entertainment directors and all the crap you have to put up with in dealing with the no-talents. It's the mediocre ones who demand the moon. Sherry here is just ripe."
"I'd hoped so," Victor said, relaxing on the chair again.
"Language like that doesn't bother me," Connie insisted condescendingly, sensing tension. "I'm a cocktail waitress, remember? I hear all kinds of language every night, believe me. Don't worry," she said. "I'm a big girl."
"Yes, I can see that," Gil said. He ran his eyes over her crotch and breasts lecherously. "You're a big girl all right. Are you twenty-one?"
"Yes," Connie answered blinking in surprise. "Why?"
"Never mind," Gil said, taking her by the hand. "That means you're old enough to have a drink and – and everything. Come on, I want to talk to you, honey. Come with me."
Connie looked a little helplessly at Victor and Sherry but nevertheless permitted Gil to lift her to her feet. "Where-where are we going?" she asked, glancing at Sherry for approval. Sherry could see through Connie's false reluctance to depart with the agent of Sherry Trent. She would probably go anywhere with anybody she thought was important.
"Go ahead," Sherry coaxed. "Gil just wants to show you around, convince everybody that he's not in his forties." She winked.
"Well, if you think it's all right," Connie said. "Okay then. We'll talk later, okay?"
"Sure," Sherry said. "Have fun, dear. Gil's really quite harmless." She remembered the night she had made love with Gil and her comment was directed somewhat cruelly at Gil who had not been able to make her reach an orgasm.
"Bye-bye," she said, as Gil tugged her by the hand toward the hotel.
"Catch the act tonight," Gil called as they walked away.
Victor stared after Connie who was literally tripping as Gil whisked her away rapidly. "God, I hate Las Vegas," he said.
"Gil's just lonely," Sherry explained.
"You mean horny," her father said.
"Well, I guess they're the same thing," Sherry said. "Speaking of horny, what time do you feel like taking our nap?" An afternoon nap prior to the first show had become a ritual with them, as it was with many performers. Sometimes a nap was just that, but sometimes it meant fucking too. If they planned on fucking they began the nap earlier. Sherry wanted to get the schedule set in her mind.
"Let's nap early," he said, which meant he wanted to fuck. He glanced at his wrist watch in the cement beside him. "By now Gil's probably screwing that tramp Connie's ass off," he said, grinning.
"Does the idea excite you?" Sherry asked. "Does picturing them doing it together make you anxious to fuck me? I bet you wouldn't mind sticking your wanger in her yourself – for variety's sake, would you? Why don't you go up to Gil's room and watch them fucking and sucking?" She was baiting him in a very hushed voice so that no one could possibly tell the subject of their conversation. Often she did that just to read his reaction. "Fuckee, fuckee, fuckee," she sing-songed.
"You know that's ridiculous," Victor said. "Nobody does the things we do together and we both know it, dear. After you, making love to Connie would be like…" – he groped for words – "… like…"
"Jacking off?" she said.
"Precisely," he said. "I couldn't have said it better."
"Good," she said, not daring to touch him in public. "That's what I wanted to hear. Yes, they're probably just bungling away, like a couple of dogs or horses. No finesse."
Victor nodded. Their conversation sometimes took an entirely different tone when they were in public. Sherry abandoned her little girl role and became the precocious girl she actually was and he spoke frankly just as he would to any other adult. "Yes," he said. "Mere copulation. Sheer getting one's rocks off. Grunt, grunt and it's all over."
"Do you really think they're already doing it?" Sherry asked.
"Who knows?" her father said. "With Gil anything's possible."
Upstairs, in Gil Turner's room, they were not doing it – at least not yet. Gil had just mixed a pitcher of martinis and Connie sat primly across the room sipping her drink. Her legs were crossed and she jiggled the top leg slightly.
It was a nice leg – long and smooth. Gil lay on the bed staring at her.
"You operate sort of fast, don't you, Mr. Turner?" she said.
"Always," he affirmed. "Whether in business or in pleasure I don't believe in fooling around. If an act has promise I sign 'em and work my ass off so everybody makes money. If I see a girl I like I tell her so. Why not?" Connie was wearing casual shoes but they had heels. "Stand up and walk across the room," Gil said. She stared at him briefly, surprised, then tilted her head to the side and set her martini down on the table beside her. "Why not?" she said, rising and strutting slowly about the room.
"Do you like me?"
"You wouldn't be here if I didn't," he said. "Got any boyfriends?"
"Casual dates – you know."
"Do you swing for money or what?" Lots of the cocktail girls in Vegas, Tahoe, anyplace where there's gambling are part-time hookers. Connie certainly had the looks for it and Gil wondered if she supplemented her income with extre-curricular fucking.
"No, Mr. Turner. Some of the girls do, but I do not." Her voice was a bit icy. "It isn't my scene."