Not what color panties she might have been wearing, but if she’d been wearing any at all. I doubted it, because the Doc had mentioned she was fourteen but pretended to be eighteen, so she could get in the Casino, and she knew what she was about.

        She was too young to be doing what she’d been doing with me, from past experience. It wasn’t learned, it was natural, playing with me like a cat, or, in this case, a kitten, with a rubber ball, and enjoying every minute of it, not for any ulterior motive but just as naturally as any kitten would play.

        That’s what I mean by authentic, and it perked me up wonderfully; there was hope for the world yet, god bless her, and I was intrigued to see how it would develop.      

She didn’t come in the evening or the next day and no word at all. I played with the Doc and had a small losing streak with the Doc asking me how it had turned out the previous evening.

        I told him we’d both won and she was a smart girl and did she maybe go to school and sometimes have to do homework in the evening?

        No, the Doc said, she spent most of her time in the Casinos, got money from her Dad, and had probably lost over eighty thousand rupees, two thousand dollars, in the last few months alone.

        The Doc said he had her cell phone number and would just call her and find out where she was and what she was doing. He did, and talked to her in Hindi then said she’d be here in fifteen minutes. She wasn’t here in fifteen minutes or in an hour and finally didn’t come at all.

      “You see?” the Doc said “This is what she’s like. She lies all the time, and she’s probably in another Casino, with other men, spending their money” the Doc leaned closer to me “You didn’t give her money to gamble with, did you?” he asked.             

      “No” I said.

The Doc didn’t understand doubling down on soft hands, so didn’t do it at all.

     “Most people have the same problem” I told him “Even when they know enough Basic Strategy to double down on hard totals. But it’s not as tough as it seems. In fact it’s really easy. You just need to remember, if you have Ace/2 and Ace/3 double against a dealer’s 5 or 6, otherwise hit. For Ace/4 and Ace/5 you should double against a dealer’s 4 and 5, if you have Ace/6, double against a 3 to 6, otherwise, hit. A soft 18 is what separates the men from the boys. Double an Ace/7 against a 3 to 6 and stand against a 2, 7, or 8, but hit against a 9, 10, or Ace”

She breezed in the next night in a different, but still very short, and sexy, skirt and a pretty floral top, all smiles pleased, it seemed, to see me and the Doc but the Doc played only three or four hands because the table was too crowded he said and left. 

        I gave her three one hundred dollar chips and she smiled at me said thanks and changed one for three one thousand rupee chips and ten one hundred rupee chips.

       “The Doc asked me if I was giving you money to gamble” I told her.

       “What did you say?” she asked.

       “I told him, no, of course” I said “It’s not his concern anyway”

I watched her as she played and this time I noticed she wore a different perfume.

       “Can I split fours?” she asked. I’d been looking at her, and she’d noticed, and I’d missed what cards she’d been dealt, but I saw the dealer had a six. 

       “You can split a pair of fours against a dealers five or six” I said “When you split two 4s against a dealer’s 6, what happens if you get a 5, 6, 7 or Ace on either 4? You’ll have 9, 10, 11 or Ace/4 against a 6, and what do you do then? You double down. Why? Because you’re somewhere between a 55% to 67% chance of winning with each of them”

We were eating in the restaurant next to the gaming tables.

       “What do you want in life?” I asked her.    

         She stopped eating and looked at me.

       “Not happiness so much” she said “That will come, if I can have freedom” she tapped her head “In here” she told me “My mind runs away with me sometimes. I think, and do, crazy things” a pause, then “I want freedom from my mind”

        This time I felt slightly uneasy about the next step because I knew what it sounded like and this time the girl was hardly more than a child. It was not difficult with an older or married woman and she either said yes or no and if she was shocked or disgusted or simply disappointed with me, and well that was the way it was and the end of it, so I told her I was a tantric practitioner and as I expected, she asked what is that and I said it’s someone who has sex with the person he or she is helping in order to create energies for physical and emotional healing and spiritual growth and if she wanted me to help her that’s what we’d be doing and was she okay with that and she said maybe but was it really necessary and how could it help her.

        I said tantric sex is different from ordinary sex and although it might look and feel exactly the same it isn’t the same thing at all and it’s at least ten thousand years old and not something I was making up just to get her into bed and I’d been doing it for almost forty years, and, yes, it is necessary and the most effective and the fastest method of physical healing and spiritual development there is.

        She said she wanted to think about it and had to leave now anyway and would come back tomorrow night and I said that’s okay but if you decide not to we can still be friends, yes? She said yes of course then picked up her bag and said bye and see you tomorrow and left.

She didn’t come the following night or the day after and I played, just about breaking even for the session, looking for her and the Doc wondered what she was doing and maybe he should call her to find out but he had second thoughts and said all we would get is lies because she was addicted to gambling and if she couldn’t get money from me she’d go elsewhere and get it from other men or her father and it was a shame because she should be in school and he blamed her Dad for taking her to Casinos and teaching her card games at such a young age and she’ll end up a common prostitute if she wasn’t one already and I’m telling you if you can’t help her she’s going to get herself into a lot of trouble.

She appeared at the door at ten-thirty in the morning and stood for a moment then the room began to move past her but her small face was a little drawn, tired, in a different top, and another very short, and sexy, skirt, and smelling of sandalwood, and suddenly she was there and hugged me briefly and said sorry I was staying with my dad who lived far away and how are you and how have you been doing and she sat down with the room turning slowly around her.

       “I’m good” I told her, and whispered, “Would you like to learn a little card counting today?”               

        The Doc was not there and hadn’t been in at all that morning and I had the impression he was deliberately spending less and less time with me now that the girl was taking up most of my attention, in fact, over the last few days, the Doc had been particularly short tempered, but it didn’t bother me and maybe he was playing at another Casino and, yes, she whispered back, she’d like to learn card counting.  

We sat at a table in the restaurant next to the gaming floor.

      “They say counting cards is really hard” she said “And to do it badly is worse than not doing it at all, is that right?”

        I nodded.

      “It depends on which system you use” I said “The casino management like you to think it’s too hard, and, yes, it is worse, doing any system badly than not doing it at all. You can lose a lot of money very fast that way, but I’ll show you the easiest, and simplest, card counting system there is”

       We ordered food.

      “Can you read?” I asked her.

      “Of course” she said “I’m not an idiot”

      “Then counting cards won’t be difficult” I said “Ask me why”.

        She shrugged.

      “Okay. Why?”

        I laughed.

      “I’m glad you asked me that, and the answer is, if you can read words, you can read cards, but you didn’t start off reading words, you started with single letters, the alphabet, one letter at a time, then you learned how to recognize those same letters, as words, but you didn’t have to work out every letter, you saw the word, and knew, instantly, what it was, then you had to put those words into sentences, and some folk, who can speed read, can recognize a complete sentence, without having to read every single word. You learn card counting exactly the same way, and, so long as you can count up and down, in ones, you can count cards, and if you can read words, you can read cards, fast, and effective, enough to beat the casino”.

         She nodded.

        “Wow” she said.

        “If you can add one and one, and make two, then add another one to make three, or take away one from two, you can count cards, but, that’s only the first step” I said “Imagine you have a bag with ten marbles in it, five are red, and five are blue, and what you have to do is put your hand in the bag, without looking and take out either a red or a blue marble, but you have to decide which it will be, and bet one hundred rupees you are right, now, what are your chances of being right, the first time, and winning one hundred rupees?”.

         Before she could reply, I went on “I’ll tell you. It’s fifty per cent. Now, say you pulled out a blue marble, and you have to do the same thing again, what are your chances of pulling out another blue marble, the same as before, more, or less?” I paused “I’ll tell you. Slightly less, because now there are only four blue marbles, but still five red ones, and, if all the blue marbles were removed, and only red ones were left, the chance of pulling out a blue marble is zero, but the chance of pulling out a red marble is one hundred per cent, and, that, essentially is how card counting works, and, if you know what cards have already been removed, you have a good idea of the cards still to be played, and, if you know that, you can bet on it, with a good expectation of winning”

Three players had just left one of the Blackjack tables, so we sat, the dealer smiling a greeting to us.

       “I want you to do something really easy” I whispered “While we’re playing, look for fives, and aces. Every five you see, on the table, count it as plus one, if you see two fives, that’s plus two, and so on, but if you see an ace, count the ace as minus one, the next ace will be minus two. Can you do that?”

       “Yes” she said “Then what?”

       “You bet a hundred rupees, until you see a five played, that’s plus one, so your next bet will be two hundred rupees, at plus two you bet three hundred rupees. If the count drops to zero, or a minus, which means more aces are appearing, you drop your bet back down to one hundred rupees, but if the count goes to plus three, you bet five times, or five hundred rupees, and if it goes to plus five, or higher, you bet one thousand rupees. That gives you a bet spread of one to ten, ok?”

       “Okay” she said.

       “A bet spread of one to ten, one hundred rupees to one thousand rupees, is okay, but to do better than break even, you really need as bigger bet, without, of course, attracting the attention of the Floor Manager, or Pit Boss. A one to ten bet spread is good, but a bet spread of one to twenty, or even thirty, is better.

       “It’s simple, and safe, and it will get you used to counting, and increasing, or decreasing, your bets” I said “Just don’t do it out loud, and don’t look as if you’re doing it”          

She took a one hundred dollar chip from her purse and changed it for three one thousand rupee chips and ten one hundred dollar chips and asked again how I’d been doing and I told her I was up twenty eight thousand dollars, which was exceptional even for a good card counter these days when almost all Casinos had in place so many effective and sophisticated counter-measures to stop card counting.        

         The key to earning a living from card counting I told her was not so much playing skill but knowing how to bet, and a big enough bankroll in relation to your risk of ruin, and good cover play because even the most skilled card counter can be spotted and banned, or wiped out with an inadequate bankroll.

         The dealer was focused on the cards and paid no attention to what we were saying and even if he was he was just an under paid employee relying a lot on the tips from players so not inclined to mention it though a few might to be seen by the management as a good employees but most didn’t care and were happy when the player won.

         She sat closer to me, touching me, and I noticed sandalwood again, her small brown hands playing with the one hundred rupee chips, smooth brown neck, cute little ears, then she looked at me, smiled, then said, do you want to hit, or stand, you’ve got thirteen, the dealer’s got a two. She’d caught me staring at her and she held my gaze for a moment with her night-black eyes and I knew it was all right then I looked at the dealer, and said stand.

         I took her hand, leaned close, and asked are you ready and she nodded and said yes then picked up her purse and we went out and the doorman said good luck, sir, and we walked up the hill into the hotel and took the elevator to the second floor. I put my arms around her in the elevator and kissed her and she reciprocated then lay her head on my chest, then the elevator door opened and we walked along the corridor holding hands then I opened my room door and ushered her in. 

We lay on the bed fully dressed, cuddling and kissing, and then I pulled her top up and kissed her pert little nipples, her head went back, and I kissed her neck, then she abruptly pulled back, jumped off the bed, pulled all the open curtains shut, even though it was not yet dark enough to make much difference, and took the top blanket off the bed, and headed for the bathroom.

        “What’re you doing?” I asked.

        “Getting undressed in the bathroom” she said.

        “Why? You’ve closed the curtains, and we’re on the second floor. Who can see you?”

        “You can” she said and went into the bathroom.

          I got off the bed, undressed, then sat on the edge of the bed, smoked a cigarette, then got under the sheet, waiting for her, then she came in, wrapped to the neck in the thin blanket, smiled shyly at me, then came to the bed, and said, close your eyes, and I did, then she got quickly in the bed beside me, naked, pulling the sheet up to her chin, and I put my arms around her, and kissed her.

           I touched her slowly, lightly, all the way down, then back up, and down again, until she began to relax, and talked to her, about sex, in general, and tantric sex, in particular, its purpose, and benefits, some of the experiences I’d had, and we laughed at some of the crazy things, she said, boys did, to get her into bed.

           It was almost dark when we did it, the sheet pulled over our heads like two children, but, obviously, it wasn’t her first time, and I told her so.

            She laughed.

           ‘How do you know?’ she asked ‘I didn’t see any eyes on the end of your cock.’'

When we came out of the hotel and started to walk down the hill to the Casino we saw people taking photographs of the night sky. There was a crescent moon with a bright star in the crescent, the sky perfectly clear, and the moon and star brilliant.

         “Wow!” she said “Isn’t that beautiful?” she put her arm around my waist “It’s a sign” she said “For us”

                                    ____________________