With a confident stride founded in the most successful night of poker yet, I walked past the room where I had left my mark and rode up the escalator toward Tao nightclub. As the escalator ascended, I quickly took stock of my outfit.
Black wingtip dress shoes. Black slacks. A royal blue button-down shirt. A suede suit, one that worked wonders in a nightclub when wit and charm fell to the side in favor of touch and displays of wealth.
It was my sharpest club outfit, a worthy outfit for the kind of night I expected. I thought about wearing a tie, but the key, for me, was to be casually fancy, and a tie would probably not help that.
But then again, the idea of having one for a woman to grab to pull me in… it’s kind of a nice idea.
A woman like Jamila.
“Fuckin’ idiot,” I said.
Then I got to the top, and four girls in black dresses and five-inch heels walked by. I looked to my right, and thought, “you could make a rainbow with all the different colored dresses here.” “Flashing Lights” blared from inside the club, loud enough that I could feel the whoomp-whoomp-whoomp of the bass from twenty feet outside the entrance. Another group of girls, this one looking like a bachelorette party, came in from the outside.
I smiled and shook my head.
Yeah, it sucked losing Jamila. But as far as indulging in something—or someone—else to get past it, this was pretty damn good.
Vegas.
Las, goddamn, Vegas.
It wasn’t hard to see why people came here to party. When I was at Princeton, I always dreamed of the kinds of parties you’d see on MTV shows or in music videos. Bottles popping, champagne flowing like its water from the ocean, a girl to guy ratio of at least five to one. You’re the star of the show, you have a couple of your close friends as your posse and you walk in like you own the place for the night—which, if you’re famous enough, you might, since you’d be hosting for the evening.
Now, I was at the clubs enough that I had probably been in a few music videos.
It was amazing and awesome to talk about it.
It was also a bit exhausting and, as much as I didn’t want to admit it, getting old and questionable as a provider of fulfilling entertainment.
But standing there in a sea of bass thumping, girls dancing and alcohol pouring, it was hard to remember the flaws.
I opened my phone and texted my host, Jason.
“Here, ready to roll as soon as my friend arrives. Shouldn’t be more than five min.”
Before I even had the chance to put the phone away, Jason responded.
“Cool. B1G1F good till midnight.”
It was 11:41 p.m. Obi was a man of promptness; at worst, he communicated well in advance when he wasn’t going to be on time. It was a good thing, too, because tonight we had a buy one, get one free deal from the club, an absurd rarity on a Saturday night in July.
And best of all, I wasn’t spending all of my money. The total costs were $900, an obscene amount of money but also a guarantee I was walking home with an extra $300 in my pocket, far from a bad night at poker. In fact, that kind of rate would guarantee I’d move up in stakes by the end of the month or at worst mid-August. I could pay my bills, boost my bankroll—hell, maybe even buy a few more nights like this.
And why wouldn’t I? With the lack of good women around, it didn’t leave me much choice. Jamila would have been my first date in Las Vegas. It was hard finding relationships living in a condo a half mile from the Strip, “working” from home and on the Strip and partying in nightclubs. It sounded like the ultimate first-world problem, which had truth to it.
