Day Three: Or maybe it was day two, or four. I don’t actually remember how long that trip was. This story is 24 hours long, though.

I think the morning started out with gambling. Going from one penny machine to another, dropping a coin in, pulling the lever. Taking turns playing a machine so the waitress would come over to take our drink order. This particular waitress came over lazily, orthopedic shoes and a sequin blouse that squeezed her breasts out of the sides and top of every opening. She looked sideways at us, she was on to us. Play slowly, drink quickly. We had been drinking so long and such a variety that we had no idea what to do next. All the cosmopolitans and b52s and tequila sunrises and vodka tonics were buzzing around in our bodies, but we had been drinking for so many hours that we couldn’t even feel it anymore at this point. She suggested a “Bleeding Russian”, or at least I think that’s what she called it, a black russian with raspberry schnapps. So we got those. And we drank, slowly taking turns pulling the lever, trying to lose our money at least according to the pace we were drinking.

It gets fuzzy from here. Whether that’s from the brain cells that I killed that night, or the typical lull of memory that happens when you try to recall something from a few years ago, I’m not sure. We walked to another hotel, maybe down the strip and back, I don’t remember. Playing the same game, drinking free liquor, trying new things. Both being new to the game of 21, our horizontal ID’s were burning in our pockets. At one casino, a cop asked to see them so we flashed them proudly. At some point in the night, we went back and put on our tightest jeans, our highest heels and as much hairspray as our teases could hold. Its just flashes of memory from this point on.

Me, sitting on a stool, next to Alice. Us talking, lazily, looking out into the casino, debating our next move. A man and a woman, maybe two men and a woman walk up to us and begin chit-chatting, the way you do on a long elevator ride. And we start talking in Vegas – you’re only young once, what happens here stays here – and so on. A tall, athletic black woman with Vegas hair, curled and teased locks eyes with me. She tells me they are in the FBI and enjoying their last day here. She had on dark blue jeans and a low-cut red top, with black leather boots that I knew would have been hurting her feet if she were able to feel them. I remember thinking at the time that this wasn’t one of those Vegas pranks; this woman was honest and decent and probably an FBI agent. Looking back, I doubt if she even made it into the local precinct. But, at the time she was magical. She turned to me, eye level where I was sitting, put her hands on either side of my face, and said in a deep, soultry voice, “your lips, they are so luscious”. I didn’t have time to react. When the words finally were processed into meaning, I realized that her tongue was in my mouth, rubbing the tip of my tongue, her hands holding my head in place. By this time, I figured, I had already began making out with the black FBI agent, so I might as well give it all I’ve got. So I kissed her back. She slowly pulled away and gave me a crooked smile. She did the same maneouvre on Alice before walking away with her friends. I looked over at Alice, her mouth still in an “o”. “We just made out with a black woman,” I said. “No one can resist your…” she gave me a smile to the side, “luscious lips”.

Flash forward. Later in the night, I don’t even remember what we were wearing at this point. There was a line of people outside of the club, DeJa Vu. Ironic now, considering. So we walked to the front. We tried to brush it off like we were hot shit, but in honesty, we had a VIP card from the hotel we were staying in from Alice’s mother. The line didn’t need the details though. Next thing, we were on an elevator, heading to the roof of a hotel for a party. We stepped off the elevator into a blue room that glowed the way a laser tag arena glows. The music shook the floor, so loud that my ears curled up inside themselves, tingling in an effort to escape the noise. There were women on glowing blocks, dancing naked, or nearly naked. They are naked in my memory, but that might be for added effect. We weaved through the crowd, to the inside bar. The music was pulsing in our heads, there were men swarming around us, but none offering to pay. So we spent some $30 on a bowl of something that glowed and had smoke rolling off the top. And we sucked on our straws, surveying the crowd. Bored with the men around us, we wandered outside.

Now, there are flashes of the Australian Navy. The guy I had been talking to, we’ll call him Chris, pulled me on the dance floor, up close to him. I was drunk. I could feel the alcohol tingling up and down my body and his breath, hot, against my neck. After a few vain attempts at conversation, he cupped his hand around the base of my head, pulling slightly on my hair, cocking my head to the side, moving his lips across my pulsing neck. I had my hand on his stomach, feeling every ripple of his chest, hard, the muscles moving under his shirt as he swayed to the inaudible chaos around us. We had been dancing for several minutes, but my heart was racing and my blood was hot. It felt like hours. He slid his tongue up my neck, to the lobe of my ear, and pulled on it slightly with his teeth. I couldn’t handle the teasing anymore. I wrapped my fingers around his belt buckle, pulling him into me, hard. Our lips met, softly at first, then with more passion as he wrapped his hand around my hip and pulled me into him so there was no air between us. I could taste the liquor in his mouth, and felt every breath, warm against my skin.

He pulled away and looked at me, stricken with surprise. I realized he probably got a little too into the kissing and told him it was okay, pulling him towards me again. He pushed me back, “I can’t,” looking straight into my eyes, sternly. “I have a girl at home. A wife.” Tears began welling up in his eyes, and I felt terrible for him. Not for her, but for him. I don’t know how, at this point, I was able to tell him I wasn’t offended, but I hugged him politely, said “thanks for the dance” and he walked away.

Flash forward. Alice and I are standing next to the hotel lobby, by a bar and some slot machines. Two new Australians. We are playing some sort of game, on teams. Taking turns and moving around a lot. My head is buzzing, but I’m not impressed with these Australians. The funny one is scrawny and clearly into Alice, flirting the way you do in junior high. The other smells of cigarettes and whiskey. Somehow, I’m sitting on his lap, tasting his smoke a few moments later, our tongues weaving around each other. But, he has a wife too. Says its something that people do when they are on holiday. I don’t remember how we got out of that one.

Flash forward. Same night, sitting at a new bar, with a new set of guys. I fooling around with the video game next to the bar, pushing buttons without any credits. A boy comes over and tries to explain to me how to play, inserting money for me this time. I lost all the credits he put in. He bought us drinks at the bar, or he and his friends did. He was from Kansas or Nebraska or somewhere rural where farming pays the mortgage. Tall, a bit lanky and obviously nervous to be talking to us. Under dressed for Vegas, but clearly overdressed for anything else he had shown up for in his life. And, he told me I was pretty. He went on and on about how amazing I was. He asked me for a kiss and I refused, knowing I wouldn’t need much more convincing. I don’t remember actually making out with him, but some horrendous photos on the plane ride home cleared that question up.

Somewhere before I ended up in bed, there was another group of people. A beautiful girl, trying to convince me to take a cab with her and her friends to another hotel. Well, she had convinced me, but Alice had to play Mom at this point. It was somewhere around 6:00 in the morning, the sun was coming up and people were filling the casino again to start their day. So we went back to our room and somehow managed to go to bed.

When we woke up the next day, after what felt like just closing my eyes, we went to breakfast. I had a club sandwich and fries that I couldn’t finish. My hangover hadn’t caught up with me yet. Alice was in the same boat. We pushed our food away from us and ran up to the room, heading for opposite bathrooms.

The next few hours that followed changed my life forever.