(# 6 in a series of Skeeter Kitefly’s Titular Assets)
as told to P. S. Ehrlich

Hi, it’s me!  I bet you’ve never gotten a call from the Secretary of Commerce Suite at the Casa Hoover Casino Hotel (just off the Las Vegas Strip) before.

What?  No I am not broke!  What a thing to suggest—I’ll have you know RoBynne and I are positively flush and not down the potty, either.  And here I was calling to say how much I miss you, but since you’ve ruined that mood let me cut right to my Big Exciting News which is Big and Exciting so believe me—

[RoBynne O’Ring, from a distance:  Aay Skee-ee!]

[Skeeter:  I’m on the pho-one!]

[RO’R:  I ordered room service!]

[SK:  Yeah, and you hogged the phone forever, too!  Didja remember my parfait?]

[RO’R:  Yeah, and if that buff Mexican hunk brings it, send him in here like pronto!]

[SK:  Oh right!  Keep on dreaming!]

So anyway, if you’ve been paying attention, you should already remember that Ro and I came down to spend the weekend with Ro’s friend Danielle, who she originally got acquainted with (hey! don’t you “whom” me) when they were groupie-ing around the underground garage band circuit back home before moving into that loft on the waterfront together with half the members of I Forget The Band’s Name.  No, I didn’t forget it; that’s what they called themselves.  RoBynne had this torrid thing going on with their bass player—

[RO’R:  Aay!  Whatchew telling him out there?!]

[SK:  Oh, quit eavesdropping on my private conversation!]

[RO’R:  So lower yer foggin’ voice!  I bet they can hear it like all the way to Reno!]

RoBynne says Hi.  So then last fall—what?  No of course I’m not mad at RoBynne; she’s just taking a bath in our snazzy sunken tub.  Didn’t I tell you we’re in the Secretary of Commerce Suite and positively flush?  But you’ll never find out how or why if you keep on interrupting.

So ANYway, Danielle ran off last fall with Stocks Pillory—you know, of Krewel & Unusual Punishment—and she and he and Larrup Knout the drummer wound up sharing a townhouse here in Vegas when the band’s not away on tour, which they are now, but Dani stayed behind on account of being so thoroughly pregnant, though not due for a couple weeks yet, but she didn’t want to risk having the baby on the bus with some roadie for a midwife, right?  So she invited RoBynne and me to come keep her company, but even after we arrived Dani kept acting all lonesome and broody, so we decided to cheer her up by letting her take us to the nearest casino, which happened to be the Casa Hoover.

I wore that pumpkin-colored halter dress your eyeballs keep plunging down the front of every time I put it on, and RoBynne wore her satin matador outfit including the cape, while Dani wore what I guess started out as a black velvet maternity smock before she covered it with spangles and rivets and Krewel concert souvenirs.  Plus the highest heels ever strapped onto a pregnant girl’s feet.

You know that old moocher song about Minnie who “had a heart as big as a whale?”  Well, with Danielle it wasn’t just her heart anymore.  And to me she’d always looked sort of like a fish out of water, with those pouty waa-waa lips that some men seem to go goo-goo over—Stocks Pillory, at least.  But now Dani was altogether whale-shaped as well as fish-lipped, and another thing about her is she’s forever going “Oww!” and “Yow!” at you.  Those’re her cheer-noises and sob-noises and gasp-noises, as well as what she says instead of “Hello there” and “Why not?” and so forth.  Except that in Dani’s condition, going “Oww!” and “Yow!” made her sound like one of those singing whales in Call Me Ahab or suchlike.

So here’s the three of us, all dolled up and rarin’ to give those casino-hoes a run for their money, singing “Bright-Light City Gonna Set Our Souls On Fire—”

[Knock knock knock]

[RO’R:  That’s room service!  Is it the Mexihunk?]

[SK:  Jussa sec!]

[Distant murmurs]

[SK:  Hey Ro!  It was a gnarly older guy, not the Mexihunk, but he brought your Hooverlobster.]

[RO’R:  So y’gonna serve it to me or what?]

[SK:  Why yes milady, coming milady, since I’m already waiting on you to get out of here and give me my turn in this tub!  Here ya go—try not to leave any pincers behind for me to sit on—]

[RB:  Oh just shaddup and close the foggin’ door!]

Still there?  Sorry to put you on pause, but I had to play bathroom-waitress—oh, did you hear us?  RoBynne’s been in there so long she’s the exact same color as that Hooverlobster.  But hey! don’t you go fantasizing about what she looks like!  If you’ve got to picture anybody naked, imagine mine inside my complimentary Casa Hoover robe.  You know how much I dote on that big brown cassock of yours, but tonight I’m being totally unfaithful to it—the robes here are so thick ‘n’ plush ‘n’ veloury it’s like I’m wearing a Hostess SnoBall.

And now to add some sizzle to your fantasies, I’m going to let you listen to me eating Hoovershrimp followed by a Hooverfilet and then a nice chocolate Hooverparfait, ‘cause I am starving to pieces!

[Chomp.  Chomp.  Munch.  Slurp.]

Ahhhhhhh…

Not bad, but I’ve tasted better—Casa Hoover isn’t exactly Caesar’s Palace.  For example the entertainment down in the Boulder Room is that Argentine Firecracker chick who seduced the Speaker of the House or somebody a bunch of years ago:

She was only a stripper
From the Silver Slipper
But she had her ways and means—

It’s a regular Church of Latter-Day Fan-Dancers.  Second helping!

[Chomp.  Chomp.  Munch.  Slurp.]

Ahhhhhhh—so where was I before the food came?  Oh right!—the three of us in the casino, RoBynne and me having champagne cocktails and Dani sticking to ginger ale for the baby’s sake; then off we saunter, drinks in hand, to hit the craps tables.

I should explain right now that I don’t understand craps.  (The dice game, that is; I don’t want to understand the other kind.)  Give me blackjack any day:  I may never win, but at least I know why I’m losing.  I’d’ve even druther played the slots and fed them all my quarters, ‘cause just once I’d love to win a great big jackpot and wash my face with it like Harpo in that Marx Brothers movie.

But oh no, we had to saunter over to the craps table.  Leave it to RoBynne O’Ring:  She had this “surefire” routine that involved blowing on the dice and chanting to them and twitching her matador cape at them in a complicated Cardinal Pufflike order—but all she got out of that rigamarole was a two, and even I know that means snake-eyes.  Boy did she smolder!

I got to throw the dice next, but for some reason they both bounced right off the table, and the comical joker holding the stick sang out:  “Oh no where’d they go?  Oh shit they’re in the pit!” and everybody laughed, so I bounced my little pumpkins at them and then they all cheered, except I suppose for the jealous casino-hoes.

Then the dice went to Danielle, and an argument broke out, this one drunk guy claiming that a pregnant woman’s the worst sort of luck (or maybe had the worst sort of luck) while this other dude said no, nothing could be luckier unless she was cross-eyed.  Which Dani wasn’t, though she did toss the dice kind of awkwardly what with “Junior” being so much in her way.

But she rolled a seven and won and got to throw again, and then she rolled an eleven and won and got to throw a third time, with RoBynne yelling, “Let it like ride!  Let it like ride!”—and Dani starts going on this regular hot-streak BINGE, rolling a whole bunch of different numbers without crapping out (which I think just sounds rude; don’t even get me started on that “come/no come” business)—and before you know it this throng crowds around the table and close up behind us, with RoBynne all in a froth-fever telling me what color chips to bet and how many and where to stack them along with hers and Dani’s and everybody else’s, more and more people running up and all of us shouting every time Dani throws the dice, she herself jumping up and down (sort of) on those too-high heels and going “OWW!” or “YOW!” with every throw, while that oh-so-comical stick guy’s not joking anymore ‘cause his pit boss is scowling at him and so are all these other evil-looking hoodlum-types in flashy suits, but Danielle just keeps rolling and winning and OWWing and YOWing—

—and not one of us realizes Dani’s gone into labor till she drops the dice and clutches me by the neck, wrapping her fingers around my halter’s tie-back which means at any moment she could spill my jack-o’-lanterns in front of the entire casino ‘cause I didn’t have much of a bra on underneath.  (Well I’m in Vegas, aren’t I?)

Then with her other hand Dani gets hold of RoBynne by the seat of her matador britches, which you’d’ve sworn were skintight but of course women in labor have the strength of heavy artillery, and with my own eyes I see Dani reach inside and grab the waistband of those French-cut fancypants that RoBynne calls her “lucky drawers”—that is when she’s not busy going “AAY!” and “LEGGO!” and then this kind of shrill-pitched whinny as Danielle starts yanking and hauling away.

So here’s RoBynne’s intimates and mine in Dani’s artillery grip, neither of us able to get loose without breaking free if you see what I mean (you and your nasty fantasizing mind)—and Dani owwing and yowing and crying “Where’s Stocks?!” and begging for an epidural; but would you believe that pit boss wanted her to keep shooting the goddam dice?  I thought casinos handle “incidents” like this with a minimum of fuss to avoid bad publicity.  Well, that’s Casa Hoover for you—anything to give the house percentages a chance to catch up.

But we sure beat the house that night, all right—though they wouldn’t let us go till Danielle’s water broke and this one evil-looking hoodlum-guy actually fainted.  RoBynne and I tagged along for the ambulance ride since it was either that or strip down, and we didn’t want to compete with the Argentine Firecracker.  So they load us into this glitzy Vegas rig like we’re Siamese triplets or the Three Stoogettes, and we’re barely inside before we get joined by a beautiful little baby girl.  Who just wanted her chance at the dice, I guess.

Casa Hoover offered us their Secretary of Commerce Suite with everything comp’d in exchange for our promise to bring Dani (and her winnings) back as soon as she’s discharged.  Which explains what we’re doing here, me in my SnoBall robe and “Princess Wedgie” trying to soothe her sore caboose—

[RO’R:  Aay!  You leave my ass out of it!]

Danielle wants us to stay till Stocks comes home, so we can be godmothers to the baby, who they want to name (get this!) “High Roller Pillory.”  Not to burst anyone’s bubble, but I think “Casina” would be a much prettier name, and RoBynne’s holding out for “RouLette” which is silly ‘cause we never went near a roulette wheel all night.

But we did get to participate bodily in the Miracle of Life, not to mention the most remarkable thing ever seen in Vegas since Ann-Margret shook her Viva Las Bee-hind at Elvis Presley.

So:  How was your weekend?