Hello everyone. Today I bring you a short story for your reading pleasure. Hopefully, anyway. :-)
Dear Vegas was originally published in an anthology of speculative fiction featuring the city of Las Vegas. I was excited about it, until I read the rest of the book. Some of the stories were good, but most were just downright offensive. Women characters without agency, ableist slurs, fatphobia... I couldn’t in good conscience recommend people read this book. So I didn’t. I took the link off of my website, I wrote a stern letter to the publisher (whose excuse was “we didn’t get diverse stories, so we didn’t publish diverse stories”). I love my story, but I couldn’t ask anyone to buy the book because the other stories could harm people.
The publisher asked for one year exclusivity, meaning I couldn’t publish my work elsewhere for year. That ran out this month. Now, I could try to get it published, get paid for it again… Or I could just give the story to the world and let you guys read it for free.
So here you go. I hope you enjoy it.
Dear Vegas
Jennifer Lee Rossman
It's been a while, hasn't it?
I'd say this town ain't what it used to be, but you were never all that great to begin with. Just an oasis of crime and debauchery amid an endless desert, done up in rhinestones and flashing lights to hide the blood.
Oh, but how you sparkled. A galaxy on Earth, your constellations made of neon and strobe.
You were the place to be. The greatest singers belting out songs to define an era, women in their best dresses and men in their hats, every night buzzing with the promise of riches just a dice roll away.
And it was all for me. It was all just set dressing around the alter where they prayed to Lady Luck.
Not since the Romans called me Fortuna have I felt such devotion from the masses. Their rituals, their charms, their kisses before they let the dice fly... all to curry my favor in hopes that I might give them an ace or nudge the roulette ball toward their favorite number.
But you were always seedy, weren't you? Deep down, hidden behind Sinatra's smile that made all the women swoon? You were filled with gangsters and cheaters and greedy casino owners. I just chose not to see it.
Look at you now, trying to hide your faults with white tigers and dancing fountains, with celebrities on your slot machines and aging singers putting on matinee shows of greatest hits no one remembers.
But you're still you. The games are still rigged, the strip still brimming with drunk partygoers and the promise that you'll keep their secrets. Tired gamblers sit in windowless casinos where time ceases to exist, feeding coin after coin into your machines because they're due for a win, because they're wearing their lucky socks, because the big jackpot is coming, they can feel it. Their eyes glaze over, their pupils replaced by spinning reels that never land on two cherries in a row, but they can't leave, because you promised them they could be rich and happy.
You promised a lot of things.
There's a part of me that wants to leave this filthy little town and never look back. Just let the desert take you over. I wouldn't have trouble finding a culture in need of a luck goddess, after all.
But that wouldn't solve anything, would it? Your casinos would crop up somewhere else, your bachelorette parties would find other male strippers to throw money at. You would continue, just spread out across the world.
No, that isn't what you need. You, my dear Vegas, just need better luck.
That's why I'm walking your streets for the first time in years, camouflaged in my strappy heels and backless dress that tries to straddle the line between classy and trashy but only succeeds in drunkenly falling face-first into trashy.
I'm here to fix you.
***
A cacophony of light and sound fights for my attention, tugging me in one direction and then another.
Sometimes you're subtle, whispering promises of wealth and excitement. "Do you see my fountains?" you say. "The golden pyramid? Do you hear the clacking of chips being counted? This could all be yours, just take a chance..."
Other times you scream "GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS" in flashing neon, and I just have to shake my head. I don't look down on the establishments or the dancers; they fill a need in society. But there are more tasteful ways to advertise that sort of business.
Then again, no one ever accused you of having taste, did they?
One casino finally calls out to me louder than the rest. It doesn't have live lions prowling the lobby behind glass and its theme--a vaguely 1940s aesthetic meets retro-futurism--lacks the cohesion of the one down the street with all the Roman soldiers, but it has a certain charm. New carpets, fresh paint. It's making an effort.
The people here are like anywhere else: hopeful. Whether they're trust fund kids putting daddy's millions on black, senior citizen groups playing penny slots, or those sad addicts who just have to try one more hand, they all hope it'll happen to them.
I find a scraggly man down to his last chip, a man who needs it more than anyone else. I can tell that sort of thing, you know. When people are really desperate. I sense it on him the same way I sense it on you.
He puts his chip on four. Used to be his lucky number, but not so much now. I walk by and touch my lips to his cheek as the wheel spins round and round.
"For luck," I say, and walk on to the next table. I can hear him cheering behind me, more like sobs of relief. He places another bet, because they always do, and I kiss another stranger, and then another.
My luck will linger with them for a while, but it will fade. It must, or else they'll be accused of cheating. As I stand along the wall, watching my luck bring them such joy, I hope they have the presence of mind to quit while they're ahead.
They won't. No one ever does, and that's how you stay alive, but I can hope.
Or maybe I can do more than hope.
***
Do you hear that, my dear Vegas? The clinking waterfalls of coins falling into plastic buckets, so loud that it must be coming from every slot machine in the city?
That's the sound of dreams coming true, of jackpots being won. It's time you made good on all those promises you seem to have such trouble keeping.
At first they'll call them card counters, say there's a glitch in the machines. But with each kiss of luck, I will drain you of your ill-gotten riches. Your neon will go dark, your Eiffel Tower will be pawned to pay the rent. You will know what it feels like to lose everything.
But let it not be said that I am a cruel goddess. I will stop kissing every person in sight, let you keep your glittering showgirls and your tigers, if you will promise to be more fair. Let them win, if they truly need the money. Let them leave with more hope than they had when you welcomed them with that big gaudy sign of yours.
Can you be that sparkling Nevada diamond I fell in love with? I know it won't be easy, but here's a kiss for luck.
XO, Lady Luck
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