Vegas Vengeance by Randy Wayne White Page A

mountains, and about the dinosaurs and jungles that once covered Nevada. The things he talked about made me realize for the first time how … insignificant my own problems and accomplishments were. It did something to me. I can’t explain it. I guess it was because it made all the guilt I felt at being a whore seem ridiculously unimportant and small. Then all of a sudden I started to cry. I don’t know why. I couldn’t stop crying. Jason bundled me into his car and drove me up into the mountains to his cabin. He made tea for me and then listened to me talk. I must have talked nonstop for three hours. I told him everything.”
    Barbara Blaine looked up at Hawker uncomfortably. “I know it must sound odd, my going off and talking to a complete stranger. But I had no male friends. A whore can’t afford male friends, you see. And Jason had this knack for making strangers feel completely and totally at ease. He listened like what you said was the most important thing in the world. Jason had a very real magic about him. Everyone who ever met him felt it. Whenever someone was in trouble or had a problem, they came to Jason to sort it out.”
    â€œAnd you became lovers?”
    She shook her head quickly. “Not at first. I had been a whore, remember? I had already had intercourse with three hundred and seventeen different men by actual count. All kinds of men—fat, thin, white, black, big, little and in between. And I despised every one of them. To me, sex was work, a bit of theater to be performed nude. I took no pleasure in it. Maybe that’s why I felt so comfortable with Jason. He never once made a pass at me. Never once said anything suggestive. When I saw him, it was usually to go on collecting trips. He called me his pack mule, because I carried whatever he happened to be collecting at the time. We talked a lot. We talked about everything. He opened my eyes to a lot of things: science, history, religion. I stayed up there in his cabin with him sometimes. I slept in the bed, and he slept outside on the porch because he said he loved sleeping outside. It was all very open and innocent, and very damn good for me. I hate to think what I would have turned into if it hadn’t been for Jason Stratton.”
    The woman shivered slightly, thinking about it. Then she began to talk once again, with the same faraway look in her eyes, remembering. “When we finally did become lovers, I had to initiate it. I was staying at the cabin. It was very late, and it began to rain. Really pour. Jason was sleeping outside, as usual. I got up to check on him. He was soaking wet. And shivering. It gets very damn cold up there. I helped him get out of his wet clothes, and I began to rub him dry with a blanket. I was wearing one of his T-shirts for a nightgown. While I dried him, I began to feel something. It was that funny feeling, low in the abdomen. It had been so long since I had felt it that it took me a moment to realize I was becoming sexually aroused. Jason, very obviously, was feeling the same way. We became lovers that night, Hawk, and I can honestly say that it was the first time in my life that I enjoyed it. It was wonderful because I loved him, you see. I really did. I couldn’t get enough of Jason Stratton, and he felt the same way about me. We spent the next two days alone on that mountain, and I consider it one of the most wonderful times in my life. I knew then that I would be with that man always and forever, no matter what happened.”
    Hawker watched with admiration as Barbara Blaine fought the tears and won. She shifted her weight and continued. “He wanted to get married because he wanted kids. I did too, but not as the proprietor of a whorehouse. We decided that I would work for two years, sell the place, and then we would be financially set for the rest of our lives. Money meant nothing to him, but it was still important to me. And you have no idea how sorry I am now that