Turbula
Online since August 2002
Fiction

Sin's Angel (Juliet Catches a Baby)

Chapter 2 from "A Baby is Born in the Holy Land"
(Chapter 1: A Baby is Born in the Holy Land)

The big guy in the black leather jacket and the twinkling earing waved a sausage-fingered hand at Juliet. She finished up her delivery of a watery bourbon and coke to the little white haired lady at the quarter machine, accepted a dollar tip with a stiff smile and swooped on over to the hundred dollar minimun blackjack table, trying not to look too eager. She let the red robe – the Magdalene gown – flair Blackjack tableout behind her, revealing a pair of shapely legs (her best feature, she thought) that were encased in black fishnet nylons. She thrust out her chest. The cut of the tight blouse dipped low, showing off a good percentage of the upper halves of her breasts, globs of flesh lifted and conjoined by a cleverly-designed (if tortuous) brassiere. The historical Mary Magdalene probably never dressed this way, but versimilitude wasn't the strong point of the Holy Land Resort and Casino. Leaching money from fervent gamblers was; and a nicely displayed cocktail waitress could do her part.

Juliet, with a cool and detached expression (she hoped) slipped in close, letting the point of her left breast hover an inch from the big guy's elbow, so he could feel her heat. She slid a cocktail napkin down and said, "What can I get you, Ace?"

Ace. A nice touch, she thought. A lot of these hot shots like a girl with some spice. She made direct eye contact, raised one eyebrow, let a wicked grin crimp the corners of her mouth. Big Guy's eyeballs bounced off her cleavage than back to her face like a pair of ping pong balls. He rubbed his chin, then said. "I don't know," with his eyes bouncing breastward once again. "I was going to order a Heinekin, but all of a sudden I'm hungry for a couple of honeydew melons."

Juliet snorted, suppressing the laugh that wanted out. "A Heineken it is," she said, a fresh sparkle in her eyes.

From a shirt pocket beneath the black leather, the big guy pulled a hundred dollar bill. He pinched either end of the bill and snapped it out flat, then creased it down the middle and held it up and tapped the crease of it on Juliet's nose. She let him, as the word asshole caught in her throat. "If it's the coldest one in the house, honey," he said. "this is yours." He moved to touch her nose again with the payoff, but she backed away and said, "I'll see what I can do."

"You do that," he replied, as the dealer turned up an ace for her hand, pairing with a queen Queen Aceshe had as hole card. Blackjack. Five hundred dollars of the big guy's money got scraped away for the house, and Juliet clipped back to the bar and asked for one of the Heinekens from the back, a room temperature bottle.

"You know I can't do that, sweetheart," said Drew, the bartender. He nodded, moving his head in a subtle circular motion, indicating the level of surveilance he – and everyone else – was under at The Holy Land. Cameras coming out our asses, they all said – in private, away from the job, since they had microphones incoming out of the same figurative oriface. "Maybe you could carry it over," he said, as he let his eyes sink down to her cleavage, "in there. That'd warm it up some."

"Maybe you could stick it up ..."

"Now, now, Juliet," Drew cut her off. "Let's not be naughty with the tongue. The Holy Land frowns on profanity."

She gritted her teeth, then bit her tongue. Drew slipped off to take an order down the bar. When he returned, he said, "It was a Heineken you needed?"

She nodded, and he said, "I've got one for you right here." He lifted a cold bottle to the bar. She took it, set it on her tray, and Drew, who'd seen her take the order from the hundred dollar minimum table, said, "Just take the money, honey, and move on your way." Then he crossed his eyes, made a goofball expression, bringing a reluctant smile to Juliet's face, and she was off, in the direction of a hundred dollar tip, clipping across the casino as a new born baby flew up and hovered – humming with an umbilical cord tension, still connected to its mother – just above the slot machines. Hovered for a frozen instant, before the cord broke, and he continued on his journey, on a collision course with the floor, unless ...

Slots It was all reflex. Juliet flung her tray with the hundred dollar Heineken away, dashed at the point of probable impact, and dove.

It was a spectacular catch, worthy of the best shortstops in the major leagues. She left her feet as her body flew into the horizontal, her arms stretched out in front of her, red robes flying like the wings of an angel, breasts broken free from the tenuous confinement of the upper border of her brassiere and hanging down like udders. All of this caught, from various angles, on The Holy Land's security cameras; all of it played in slow motion by various security guards prior to confiscation; all of it – as a whole and spliced into numerous flattering and provocative still shots – pirated off and sold for handsome prices over the Internet; the highest-selling of the stills a shot from Juliet's front, her hands palms up and thrust forward, beseechingly it seemed, her bosom slightly splayed and given a wonderfull, full cantalope-ian shape by the pull of gravity, her painted red mouth set in a small "o" as her gaze fixed itself of the flying baby – who, from this particular camera angle, was not included in the shot. A photo labeled, within hours, "Sin's Angel" on eBay.

The baby, slick with amniotic fluids, fell into her hands. Juliet pulled him, inches from the floor, to her breasts, and did an agile roll to avoid crushing him. She landed on her side, abrasively, sliding over to the blackjack table, to a stop with a bump against the hundred dollar tipper's stool. She sat up, baby encased in arms and bosom. The big guy looked down and said, "Holy Christ!", slipped off his stool and helped Juliet up, as a crowd converged; and before she could be spirited away, the big guy slipped ten one hundred dollar chips – that he'd just won on a down for double on an eleven (with a sixteen, after the dealer busted) into the smock pocket of her red robe.


Published October 2005



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