An Unexpected Love Story

Part One: Chapter One

Part One: Vegas

Chapter One:

I smile as I'm thrust more drinks from already drunk hands. I'm being held hostage, technically, and I'm looking for an escape. Of all the places in the world, Melanie decides to hold her wedding in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Not some beautiful hot spot destination that you dream of where you float in tranquility and awe, but the loud, hustling, dirty, gambling town of glitter and sparkle.

The bride in question, sits on her arranged pedestal as everyone fawns over her.

"Kagome! Darling! We should go out on the strip shouldn't we? Look at how beautiful it is out there! Come on girls, all this beauty can't go to waste!" The entire entourage of bridesmaids make a beeline for the door. Melanie and I are some of the last to exit and I can feel a small hand wrap around my arm to find my palm. At the end of my wrist I find a very drunk Mel trying to shove a wad of small bills into my hand.

"What are you doing? Do you want us to get robbed or something?"

"I think you're going to need it for where we're going. You'll be thanking me in the morning." She attempts a wink, something she is unable to do even while sober, and stumbles out the door behind me.

"Oh dear." What on earth is Mel getting us into?

I really do adore her, with all of my heart in fact. She's the sister I never had. However, when the limousine pulls into what I can only guess is a strip club I want to scream at the top of my lungs, throw the money I was given onto the pavement, and run all the way home. All the way to Japan. All the way to the well.

The well that no longer works. I want to see the people that no longer exist. Slay the demons that now, have died out. The jewel that no longer possesses any power. A jewel that's all used up with no more wishes. I want nothing more than to return to a past that no one here knows about.

"Come on Kagome, it'll be fun!" Someone grabs a hold of me and I'm sucked into the black hole doors. All of my previous escape plans now no longer acceptable.

It's a strip club alright. One that is exclusively for women. They come in looking for dates and leave with much more, no dinner or wine and dine required.

The wedding party slides into a section, bride to be front row center while I stay on the outskirts, scoping for a new escape. Music blares. One of those endless songs, with an endless beat. Male strippers parade around on a runway of glitter and gold before choosing tables.

"Hey there ladies, my name is Pierre. Who am I pleasing first?" He shoots a suave look to everyone and I find even myself staring.

Melanie the self-proclaimed queen bee to her drones, orders him to please a rather rotund woman of our party in her classic Melanie tone.

He leaps onto the table and begins to shake his hips in a way I am assuming is supposed to be seductive. The girls eat it up, they cat-call and hoot at him as he slithers down to eye level and starts to gyrate some more.

After a couple of minutes, the music changes but the beat doesn't. Pierre bids us au revoir and another dancer hops onto our table. He introduces himself just as Pierre did.

Musical chairs for adults. Mel orders him off to some other patron of the wedding, while I try to hide.

I sit quietly on the edge. Everyone else talks and laughs in a drunken stupor. I'm looking for exits when something catches my eye. Just the smallest glimpse of silver. I steady myself and take a deep breath. It couldn't be. My heart pounds as I close my eyes. The music changes and Jason steps off the table. My eyes still closed I hear the next stripper step on.