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I arrived at the Bellagio hotel and casino half an hour early on Sunday for my date with Bongo. In the late afternoon, four hours before our date, I’d begun obsessively checking the time every two minutes. After forty minutes of relentless updates, I’d succumbed to my excitement and started preparing for my evening out. I ended up completing my shower, hair, and makeup at five. It took me another half hour to rotate through various outfits before I ultimately decided on a little black dress that concealed more than it revealed.
The hemline hung almost down to my knees, a good six inches longer than the other dresses I typically wore. The neckline reached my throat instead of being cut low like most of my other garments. But the dress was sleeveless, and the empire waist lent a touch of femininity to the torso. Still, I covered my arms with a light, black sweater.
If left to my own devices, I would have chosen something that exposed more skin. My main driver for selecting this dress had actually been Bongo himself. Some things are better left to the imagination, he’d said.
Although I couldn’t sit still, I made myself wait until six to leave the apartment. I pulled into the Bellagio self-park garage at six-twenty. It took me ten frantic minutes to locate the restaurant on the outer perimeter of the casino floor. I then spent the next twenty minutes wandering back and forth along the hallway separating Circo from banks of noisy slot machines. Every third step or so, I checked the time on my cell phone.
“You’re early.”
I whipped around at the sound of Bongo’s voice. My cell phone, which I had just woken up again, clattered to the strip of marble floor edging the carpeted walkway.
Bongo retrieved my phone, staring me directly in the eyes as he handed it over.
“Thanks,” I said, my breath catching. I took my phone without touching him and shoved it in my purse before my trembling hands threatened to drop it again.
He cocked his head. “How long have you been here?”
“Just a few minutes,” I lied. “I wasn’t sure how bad traffic would be.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d show,” he replied. “But I’m glad you did.”
I blinked. It had never occurred to me not to show.
We stared at each other, not even bothering to move out of the walkway. The other casino patrons pushed around us in their haste to empty their wallets. My heart thumped so loudly it drowned out the cacophony of the nearby slot machines.
Bongo looked away first, his gaze falling on one of the machines. “Were you ready to eat?”
“What’s the alternative?”
“We could wander around here for a while, let my reservation lapse.” He looked at me and smiled. “Unless you have a better idea.”
I was just starting to consider the merits of going somewhere private when a woman rammed into me with a baby stroller. The toddler inside released a bloodcurdling scream. I winced and covered my closest ear with one hand. The woman yanked the stroller back and glared at me, as if I were somehow responsible for her brat’s ill temper. She pivoted and stormed past me.
As the woman and toddler faded from view, I pulled my hand away from my ear and shuddered at the foolishness of what I had been about to suggest. I barely knew anything about Bongo, only that he was a drug dealer with a snake tattoo and dangerous blue eyes, yet I’d actually been thinking about how enjoyable it would be to escape to someplace alone with him. Thank goodness for that woman and her devil spawn knocking some sense into me.
“Eating sounds good,” I said.
Bongo grabbed hold of my elbow. Just the sensation of his touch, even through the fabric of my sweater, made my knees weak. I pressed closer to him, using his body for support.
Fortunately, I merely needed to follow his lead as he directed me through the doors of the restaurant. I didn’t think I could traverse even the short distance had he not been there to hold me upright.
Two other couples beat us to the hostess stand. I expected Bongo to let go of my arm as we stepped in line, but he maintained his grip.
“You look nice,” he said. I wasn’t sure whether I was thankful or disappointed when he didn’t give me the appreciative once-over he had in the Barely There parking lot.
“So do you,” I said automatically.
It wasn’t really a lie, but I had yet to look at anything other than his eyes, which were still stunning and did, in fact, look really nice. When I forced my gaze away from his face, I saw he wore what looked to be the same outfit of jeans, jacket, and boots that he’d had on Friday night. It suited him well.
We approached the hostess, who was so short the stand practically obscured her from view. She tipped her head back to give us a perky smile and chirped, “Do you have a reservation?”
“Megan for two,” Bongo said, winking at me.
Just hearing him say my name spurred my heart to perform a little flip.
The hostess pulled two menus off a stack and bounced around the stand. “Right this way.”
We followed her to a small table in the back. I blew out a breath, relieved to see we were invisible to the people passing through the casino outside. Should the police pursue Bongo’s arrest here, at least the scene wouldn’t attract too much attention from camera-happy tourists.
The hostess held out my chair. I hesitated before perching on the seat, not used to this kind of attention. When I ate out, I generally went to a bar or a restaurant with enough similarities, or I waited to be handed a greasy paper bag through the window of my car. Mike and I had never been to a sit-down restaurant, and my boyfriend before him liked a place that served roasted peanuts in a dog dish as an amuse-bouche. The patrons were expected to crack into the meat themselves, then discard the empty shells on the floor and grind them into the wood with their heels.
“Enjoy your meals,” the hostess trilled before dashing off.
I flipped open the menu. Once I figured out the numbers in the rightmost column were prices, I had to struggle to keep my jaw from dropping to the floor.
“What are you thinking?” Bongo asked.
I tore my eyes away from the menu. “I’m thinking I’ve never paid forty dollars for a meal before.”
He laughed. “You realize I’m paying, right?”
His amusement made me smile. “So, technically, after tonight I still will never have paid forty dollars for a meal?”
“Exactly.”
We stared at each other for a second, then both turned back to our menus at the same time. My heart pounded as I struggled to focus long enough to select an entrée.
A waiter ambled toward us, dressed so formally I had to silently question whether he’d come straight to work after serving in someone’s wedding party. “Good evening, sir, ma’am. May I get you a beverage?”
I slumped in my seat a little at the ma’am, but the waiter didn’t even look at me. He focused instead on Bongo, who held up the wine menu and pointed to his selection.
The waiter nodded. “Excellent choice.” I wondered how he would know. The wine listing stretched so long that no one person could have sampled each bottle, even if they were a raging alcoholic.
“I hope you like wine,” Bongo said after the waiter retreated. He set down the wine menu. “I ordered us a bottle of rosé.”
“I love wine.” I was too distracted to mention I preferred white. It took all my willpower to not pick up the wine menu and look over all the prices.
The waiter returned with our bottle and poured me a glass. I took a sip, blown away by how good it tasted. Whatever Bongo was paying for this wine, it was worth it.
The waiter leaned toward me. “Are you ready to order?”
I jerked my attention back to the menu and scanned through it, this time focusing on the dishes themselves. Pizza seemed like my safest option, since I had no clue what some of the items were. I didn’t want to request the il polipo and end up with a plate full of boiled snails.
Bongo ordered the salmon, and we handed our menus to the waiter, who departed with a bow.
Bongo folded his arms on the table. “So, what’s your act? At the club.”
“I’m a college girl,” I told him, flushing over such an admission in this refined setting.
He doubled over in laughter. I leaned back in my chair, a spark of irritation flaring in my chest. It was one thing for John to tell me I wasn’t believable as a college girl or to think so myself, but was the image really this ridiculous?
I gritted my teeth and picked up a fork to keep my hands occupied. “Glad you find it so amusing.”
He swallowed a chuckle. “It’s just . . . not you.”
My hands dropped to the table as my spirits sank. The fork fell out of my grip, landing on the tablecloth without a sound. “Because I’m too old.”
“Because you’re too mature,” he corrected.
I rolled my eyes, recognizing a lame euphemism when I heard one. “That’s the same as being old.”
Bongo shook his head and bent closer. Electric sparks shot straight up my arms when he placed his hands over mine. “It’s not the same,” he said. “Mature means you’ve experienced enough of life to be comfortable with who you are, and you take no shit from anyone as a result. Old is when you’ve lost yourself and your passion.”
His touch had completely immobilized me. I could barely process his words, let alone even think of what to say in response. I needed him to release my hands before I became completely brain-dead.
As if I’d communicated this thought by osmosis, Bongo pulled his hands away. Contrary to my earlier desire, I almost told him to not let go, that his touch felt too good, but I hadn’t yet regained the ability to speak. My hands felt strangely lost without his on them. I’d once read about amputees experiencing phantom pain where their removed limbs used to be. I imagined this felt similar.
To hide my trembling fingers, I set my purse on the floor and placed the cloth napkin in my lap, smoothing it over my legs.
I racked my brain in search of something to say. “Is Bongo your real name?”
He laughed again. “No.”
I waited for him to elaborate, but when he didn’t I opted not to press the issue. I wasn’t sure I wanted to learn his real name anyway. This way, when the prosecutor asked me to describe Stuart Small’s or someone’s illegal activities, I could say I didn’t know who he was talking about without perjuring myself.
The waiter showed up with a basket of bread and two salads. After he left, Bongo and I ate in silence. Although I didn’t care much for salad, these were just tiny house versions with barely any substance. They were nothing like the monstrosity Jan had picked at the day of Carly’s vigil.
I stiffened. The memory of Carly’s vigil reminded me of the favor I had asked of Bongo.
I stirred half a cherry tomato through a dollop of vinaigrette dressing. “Did you find out anything about those pills?”
Bongo pushed his empty salad plate away. “Yep. My man ran a test on one of them. It’s a salt pill, nothing of real substance.”
“A salt pill?” I repeated. Why would Patrick be handing out pills made of nothing but salt?
“Here, try it if you don’t believe me,” Bongo said.
He pulled the baggie from his jacket pocket, extracted a pill, and moved it toward my mouth. I knew I should protest. I knew I shouldn’t accept a strange pill from a known drug dealer who very well could have switched one of the pills I’d given him with a roofie.
But the sight of that tiny little pill approaching my mouth in his long, competent fingers mesmerized me. I would have eaten a beetle if he hand-fed it to me like this.
He pressed the pill against my mouth until my lips slid apart. My burning curiosity about these pills combined with Bongo touching my lips filled my brain with a dizzying buzz. Against my better judgment, I allowed him to push the pill into my mouth. He did so languidly, then pulled his hand back just as slowly.
I could tell right away the pill tasted salty. I let it sit under my tongue for a few seconds, not sure whether to bite into it for confirmation or swallow it whole. Common sense finally prevailed, and I spit the pill onto my bread plate. Both to steady myself and to clear out the residual taste, I took a huge sip of wine.
“See?” Bongo said.
I nodded, but I didn’t see at all. Why would Patrick prescribe Carly salt pills? It didn’t make any sense.
The waiter cleared our salad plates and placed our food in front of us. I inhaled the rich aroma of melted mozzarella cheese, pushing my concerns about the pills aside. I tore off a piece of pizza and had it halfway to my mouth when I noticed a woman across the room cutting a bite-sized morsel off her own pie using a knife and fork.
Was that how people ate pizzas served on china instead of in cardboard boxes? I wondered. My gaze drifted to my own pizza slice, now dripping cheese around my bare hand. I set the slice down and lifted up my utensils, studying the woman’s movements so I could imitate them properly.
Bongo took a bite of his fish, leaning back while he swallowed. “So, tell me why you needed these pills analyzed.”
“They belonged to my roommate, Carly,” I began.
I intended to tell him the bare minimum, how Carly had died and I’d found unlabeled pills in her purse that piqued my curiosity, but before I knew it I found myself pouring out the whole story. I started with the police’s visit to my apartment twelve days ago, then recounted all my findings related to Carly’s pregnancy and care plan, Keisha’s own troubling experiences, and the Options clinic in general. I eventually ended my tale by explaining my intent to accost Cal tomorrow morning. I didn’t omit even the most incriminating details, such as how I’d impersonated a lesbian and accepted a five-thousand-dollar check from Carly’s mother in order to read through confidential medical records.
Bongo didn’t interrupt throughout the long chronicle. Instead, he watched me with those steady blue eyes.
I was used to men watching me at the club or in bars. Their stares usually made me feel sexy, sometimes powerful. Bongo studied me in a way that I found both unnerving and flattering. I knew I’d captured his interest, yet I wasn’t sure I welcomed it. I’d never felt like this under a man’s gaze.
“What does your gut say about this clinic?” Bongo asked when I finally stopped talking.
I regarded him, trying to gauge whether his reaction would be similar to Officer Sparks’. He seemed to have taken my story seriously, so I replied honestly. “My gut says something strange is going on at Options.”
He hunched closer. “Then you’re probably right.”
I smiled, taking heart from someone saying he believed me, even if he had qualified his belief with probably and left out the excited head nods that suggested utter conviction. Bongo clearly wasn’t ready to storm down to the police station and support my demands for an investigation, but I felt encouraged knowing he didn’t think I was crazy.
We ate in silence, although Bongo had pretty much finished his meal while I’d talked about Carly and now waited for me to catch up. His unwavering attention caused my fingers to quiver. I handled my utensils as though this dinner marked my first exposure to civilization, dropping them multiple times and getting the knife blade caught in my fork tines more than once. Eating a pizza in a restaurant was turning out to be much more complicated than I would have predicted.
“Tell me about your profession,” I said when I grew too nervous to put another bite in my mouth.
The charge in the air shifted. His drug dealing was the elephant in the room sitting on the table between us. Neither one of us had dared to mention it yet, but it didn’t feel right to ignore it any longer.
“There’s not much to tell.” His gaze didn’t leave my face. “You already know what I do.”
“But what is it like?” I persisted, not sure if pressing him was a good idea even as I did so.
He didn’t speak, and I wasn’t sure whether he planned to ignore this subject altogether. But then he shrugged and turned to look off somewhere in the restaurant. “It’s a means to an end. My brother got me started in it a couple years after he became involved. But he was always more enamored with it than I was. He used too. For him, it was a lifestyle.”
I picked up on the past tense of his story. “Your brother got out of it?”
“Yeah.” Bongo watched a waitress unload a tray of food on the other side of the room. He waited until she’d disappeared back into the kitchen before adding, “He died.”
My stomach constricted. I studied the emotion playing across his face, then lowered my gaze when the moment began to feel too intimate, as though I were invading his privacy.
I didn’t ask what had happened to his brother, guessing his fate related to the drugs. Whether he had overdosed, or been shot by a traitorous partner, or retaliated unsuccessfully during a police bust, I couldn’t imagine the answer would provide any comfort.
I cinched my sweater tighter, a chill spreading throughout my body. “Doesn’t it scare you?” I asked. “Doing something illegal to make a living?”
“It mostly makes me more aware that I only get this one life to live and I shouldn’t waste it.”
We didn’t speak, both of us just staring at each other across our abandoned plates.
Most of the time on dates, I had a good idea of what occurred now. The guy would angle at prolonging the evening by escorting me home or inviting me over to his place. The more direct ones would just ask outright whether I wanted to fool around. What actually happened depended on how much I liked whomever I was with at that moment in time.
With Bongo, I had absolutely no idea what he was thinking. His intense blue eyes betrayed nothing.
I picked up my fork, rearranging it over the remains of my pizza for something to do. I didn’t know where we went from here, or where I even wanted us to go.
“You should let me take you out again sometime,” Bongo said when the silence between us started to feel awkward.
I stopped fiddling with my utensils and looked at him, the wind rushing out of my lungs as our eyes connected yet again. I couldn’t believe how attracted I was to this man. Of course, I knew nothing good could come from starting up a relationship with a known drug dealer—especially one named Bongo with a snake tattoo, for God’s sake.
He picked up the bill folder next to him. The waiter must have deposited it when I hadn’t been looking. Or maybe he hadn’t bothered with subtlety at all, and I had been too distracted by my companion to notice.
Bongo pulled a wad of twenty-dollar bills out of his jacket pocket and peeled off enough to cover our fare. He didn’t mean it as such, but, given that we hadn’t come here to gamble, his method of payment served as a reminder of his unorthodox profession. Most people would have handed over a credit card and prayed it wasn’t declined.
He pushed the bill folder away and rested his elbows on the table, cradling his chin in his hands as he gazed at me. “I’d take good care of you.”
I considered what my life would be like if I became involved with a criminal. I’d had heart palpitations just thinking about the police finding one little baggie of marijuana in my coffee table. What if I had to coexist next to entire stockpiles of drugs? What if every time I opened my closet I’d find my clothes wedged next to stacks of cocaine bricks? Would I ever be able to relax? I’d likely lie in bed every night dwelling over whether this would be the day my significant other fatally crossed the competition or got caught in a raid. I couldn’t imagine ever feeling secure.
But, taking in Bongo’s earnest face, I knew he wasn’t lying. He would treat me well. He just couldn’t protect me from my own worries.
“I know you would.” I looked at him, feeling my heart drop to the floor. Part of me wished he had chosen a different career, but I probably never would have met him otherwise. My eyes landed on the twenties peeking out the side of the bill folder. I forced my legs into a standing position and reminded myself that I was mature. “But I don’t need the complication of dating a felon. I can take good care of me too.”
With a lightheaded sense of disembodiment, I watched myself place the napkin in my lap on the table and pick my purse up off the floor. I saw Bongo watching too, with something resembling respect.
I forced myself to stand up and step toward the exit. “If you ever change careers, you know where to find me,” I said, turning back even as I walked away.
